
Class 
Book 



coPYRiiCKr Dtposrr 



New Jersey as a Colony 
and as a State 



Nova B E L 




ADRIAKN VAN DKR DONCk's MAP. 

(Showing New Jersey and adjaceut country in 1656.) 



NEW JERSEY 

AS A COLONY AND AS A STATE 



One of the Original Th ir teen 



BY 
FRANCIS BAZLEY LEE 



ASSOCIATE BOARD OF EDITORS 



WILLIAM S. STRYKER, LL.D.: WILLIAM NELSON, A.M. 
GARRET D. W. VROOM : ERNEST C. RICHARDSON, Ph. D. 



VOLUME ONE 




THE PUBLISHING SOCIETY OF NEW JERSEY 
NEW YORK MDCCCCII 



•L47 



THE LIBRARY OP 

C0NQRFS8, 
One Copv RFosfvtB 

^£fc- 5 1902 

CorvmaHT enthy 

CLASS ^ XXa No 

COPY A. 



CoPYBioHT, 1902, By 
Thb Publishino SoctBTY or Nbw Jbbsbt 



^// Rights Reserved 



PUBLICATION OFFICE 
13G LIBERTY 8TRKET 
NEW YORK, N. Y., U. 8. A. 



DEDICATED 
TO THE PEOPLE OF THE 
STATE OF NEW JERSEY 



FOREWORDS 

^T^HE history of the State of New Jersey has 
•'- been variously written by men of more than 
ordinary ability. In the prosecution of their la- 
bors the authors of these general works have gath- 
ered a vast collection of facts, and have succeeded 
in presenting their material in a spirit of personal 
honesty. But throughout all these histories the 
chronological and biographical treatment has 
been adopted. 

For the first time, probably, in the general his- 
tory of any State, certainly in any history of New 
Jersey, a different method has been followed. 
Each chapter is a monograph, or a portion of a 
monograph. The characteristics of a dramatic 
period, or the special lines of development during 
an era, are presented, rather than the setting 
down of a series of facts selected solely for what- 
ever intrinsic value they may possess. 

It is obvious that the so-called " local history " 
of large communities may be subordinated in this 
method of treatment. Sometimes seemingly im- 
portant facts are omitted. Upon the other hand 
it may appear, superficially, as if less important 
communities have undue prominence. Yet in the 



8 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

historical perspective an attempt has been made 
to secure proportion without regarding, as final, 
present conditions. Particularly is this true con- 
cerning the colonial period, when it is remembered 
that communities now scarcely risen to the dig- 
nity of small cities were once important centers, 
and that three of New Jersey's largest cities — 
Jersey City, Paterson, and Camden — were abso- 
lutely unknown by name in 1787, when the federal 
constitution was framed. 

The history of a State is but a part of the his- 
tory of the nation; the history of counties, town- 
ships, municipal corporations, even of the smallest 
villages, is a part of the history of the State. No 
crossroads hamlet there is that has not played 
some part in the development of the common- 
wealth, or has not had among its residents at least 
one man who has aided in shaping the destinies 
of New Jersey. In short, the history of a State 
must be considered the history of its people. It is 
within these four volumes that an attempt has 
been made to delineate their daily lives, in brief 
what they did, and how, under religious, political, 
economic, or social impulses, they acted. 

To secure such a delineation as would give, in 
outline, the history of the people of New Jersey, 
recourse has been had to much available printed 
material, particularly contemporaneous newspa- 
pers, and manuscripts. The desire has been to 



ONY AND AS A STATE 9 

avoid even the semblance of partisanship, particu- 
larly of a political character. To this end the 
chapters dealing with the rise and continuance of 
political policies, expressed by partisan action, 
contain mainly the records of legislative proceed- 
ings and abstracts of party platforms. 

The proofs of the four volumes have been care- 
fully read by Messrs. Garret D. W. Vroom and 
William Nelson, of the Associate Board of Editors, 
while before the death of the late William S. 
Stryker he outlined the plan of the second volume 
and prepared therefor many useful notes. 



SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS 



CHAPTER I 

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN THE DELAWARE 

VALLEY 27-60 

Status of Scientific Inquiry upon the Subject — Distri- 
bution of the Traces of Man, and their Relation to the 
Natural History of the «' Trenton Gravels " — Resem- 
blance between the Delaware as a "Glacial Trench" and 
Rivers of France and England — Evidences of the Exist- 
ence of Paleolithic Man in the Delaware Valley based 
upon exhumed Argillite Implements found in Undis- 
turbed and Stratified Glacial Gravels; upon the Discovery 
of Remains of Extinct Quaternary Animals; and upon 
those of Man Himself — Comparison between Paleolithic 
Implements found in the United States and those Dis- 
covered in Europe. 



CHAPTER II 

INDIANS OF NEW JERSEY 51-71 

Diversified Views as to the Origin of the New Jersey 
Indian — The Lenni-Lenap6 or Delawares a Nation of 
the Algonkin Family — Their Physical Appearance 
— The Life in the Wigwam — Their Progress in the In- 
dustrial Arts — Their Dress, Family Relations, System 
of Education, Administration of Justice, Medical Skill, 
Religious Cult, and Form of Government — The Relation 
the Lenni-Lenap6 bore to the White Settlers — Partial 
Success of Missionaries — Adjustment of Land Titles — 
The Decline of the Indian — The First Reservation — The 
Subsequent History of the Remnant of the Lenni-Lenap6 
and His Sentimental Place in State History. 



12 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

CHAPTER III 

THE STRANGE STORY OF NEW ALBION 73-84 

Sir Edmund Plowden and His first Grant — Youg and 
Evelin explore the Delaware River in 1634 — The 
Troubles of the Earl Palatine — Beauchamp Plantage- 
net's " Description," and the " Order, Medall, and Riban 
of the Albion Knights of the Conversion of Twenty- 
three Kings " — A Mediaeval Plan of Government — 
Strange Sights that Master Evelin saw in New Jersey — 
The Failure of New Albion — The Interests of the 
Plowdens Revived in 1784 by Charles Varlo, and His 
Assertion of Claim to Title. 



CHAPTER IV 

NEW SWEDEN 85-101 

Sweden's Colonization of the Delaware Valley due to 
three Causes : Jealousy of Holland's Growth as a 
World Power, Extension of the Nationalization Policy 
of Gustavus Adolphus, and Shrewdness of Willeni 
Usselinx — The Securing of Religious Freedom Distinc- 
tively Subsidiary — The History of the Commercial Com- 
panies as Agencies of Colonization — Peter Minuit arrives 
in the Delaware in 1638, buys Laud, and plants a Colony — 
The Quarrels with the Dutch and the New Englanders — 
New Expeditions and New Governors — The Colony 
becomes Neglected and the Dutch Conquer the Swedes in 
the " Bloodless War" of 1655 — The Habits and Customs 
of the Settlers — Swedish Place-Names in New Jersey, and 
the Effect of Swedish Mental and Physical Characteristics 
upon the Subsequent English Colonists. 



CHAPTER V 

NEW NETHERLAND 103-119 

The Dutch West India Company and the Voyages of 
Hudson and Mey — The Settlement of Manhattan Island 
and the Attitude of the Hollanders toward the Indians — 
The Patroonship at Cape May and its Failure — Quarrels 



ONY AND AS A STATE 13 

with Connecticut Settlers and the Swedes, and Internal 
Dissensions, lead to Retrogradation of the Colonization 
Scheme — New Life on Manhattan Island and Demand for 
Popular Government — Peter Stuyvesant and His 

Troubles The Dutch Settle at Hoboken, Pavonia, Paulus 

Hook, and Bergen — The Indian War of 1643 — The Fall 
of the Swedish Colonies on the Delaware — Holland's 
Settlement in the New World based largely upon Desire 
to obtain Economic Advantages in the Partition of an 
Unknown Continent — The Dutch Establish the Principle 
of Purchasing Indian Title to Land. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ENGLISH CONQUEST AND OCCUPATION. .121-142 
England's Plan to Destroy Holland's Influence in North 
America — Charles II, vmder the influence of Edward 
Hvde, the Royal Chancellor, Resorts to War — England's 
Tide to Land Claimed by the Dutch— The Duke of York 
and His Commissioners-^The Conquest of 1664 and its 
influence— Berkeley and Carteret and their Title to New 
Jersey — Preparations for Emigration and the Character 
of the New Settlers — The "Concessions and Agreements " 

Arrival of the First Proprietary Governor, Philip 

Carteret— Newark and its Vicinity Settled— The Four 
Sources of Land Title to New Jersey, from the Indians, 
Dutch, NicoUs, and the Lord Proprietors, lead to Contro- ^^^ 
versy in the First Assembly — Some of the Colonists / 
Rebel and Select a " President "—The " Triple Alliance" 
Dissolves in 1672, and the Dutch Recapture New Amster- 
dam in 1673 — Elizabethtown, Newark, Woodbridge. Pis- 
cataway, Middletown, Shrewsbury, and Bergen submit to 
Dutch Rule — Type of the New Government — The Treaty 
of Westminster, in 1674, restores New Jersey to the 
Eno-lish Crown — The Arrival of Sir Edmund Andros. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE JERSEYS 143-171 

John Fenvs-ick and His Colony at Salem— William Penn 
and His Associates become Interested in the " New 



14 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

Experiment " — Fenwick Quarrels with the Duke of York 
and Sells His Interests — The Q\iintipartite Deed of 1676 
creates the Colonies of East Jersey and West Jersey — 
Peun and His Influence in West Jersey — The Organic 
Law of the Colony an Expression of Advanced Ideas 
in Democratic Government — The Erection of " Tenths " 
and the Arrival of the Commissioners — Claims of the 
Duke of York — The Quarrel between Carteret and Sir 
Edmund Andros, and Subsequent Litigation — East Jersey 
Passes under the Control of Proprietors — The Governors 
and the New " Concessions " — Legislation in the two 
Provinces — The Troubles with the Duke of York and His 
Quo Warranto Proceedings — Dr. Daniel Coxe acquires 
land Interests in West Jersey — Books and Pamphlets 
Relating to East and West Jersey. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SETTLERS OF EAST JERSEY 173-181 

The Early Elements mainly from Congregational Com- 
munities in New P^ngland or Calvinistic Centers in f]ngland 
and Scotland — The Influences miderlying Emigration and 
the Spirit of Theocracy — Puritan Cliristian Names among 
East Jersey Families — The Relation of Church to State — 
The Coming of the Huguenots and their Subjective Influ- 
ence — Prominent Names among these French Settlers. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE SETTLERS OF WEST JERSEY 183-190 

The Disappearance of Popular Superstitions concerning 
America — The Agricultural Advantages of W^est Jersey 
led to Development along the Lines of least Natural 
Resistance — The Development of a Plantation-owning 
Aristocracy, Sustained by the Religious Customs of the 
Society of Friends — The Plantation becomes the Unit of 
Social, as the Shire-town becomes the Unit of Political, 
Life — Differences between East Jersey and West Jersey 
as Shown in the Political and Religious Concepts of the 
Settlers — One Object in Common between tif»--Quaker 
and the Calvinist, the Stamping ui)on the Individual the 
full force of their Religious Teaching. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 15 

CHAPTER X 

SOME PHASES OF EARLY LIFE 191-206 

Land, in Colonial New Jersey, the Basis of Material 
Wealth, Personal Advancement of the Settler, and Ulti- 
mate Progress of the Province — The Farmer becomes the 
Dominant Figure — Holdings in East Jersey, Except among 
the Dutch, Small in Size — In West Jersey large Planta- 
tions, with Interests in vast Tracts of Forest Land, Marked 
Individual Possession of Real Estate — Life upon the 
Farm — Character and Appointment of Homes — Educa- 
tion of the Women — Food and Drinks — Industries on the 
Seacoast — Slaves, Redemptioners, and Apprentices, and 
the Relation they bore to their Masters — Sources from 
which Bond-labor was Obtained — Vessel Building and the 
Colonial Merchant Marine — Privateering — Whaling from 
Sandy Hook to Cape May. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE UNION OF THE JERSEYS 207-214 

The Surrender of Proprietary Government of East and 
West Jersey — The Acceptance by Queen Anne and the 
" Union of 1702 " — Lord Cornbury arrives in New Jersey 
as the First Royal Governor — Quarrels with the House 
of Assembly imtil 1708 — The Growth of a Spirit of 
Democracy — Cornbury Paves the Way for Spirit of Resist- 
ance first Directed against the Governors of the Crown 
and then, in 1776, the Crown Itself — The Evils of his prof- 
ligate Administration — Morris and Jenings. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE GOVERNOR, COUNCIL, AND ASSEMBLY. . .215-225 
Governor Cornbury's "Instructions" and What they 
Contained — Liberty of Conscience allowed Everyone 
" Except Papists " — Organization of the Council and 
House of Assembly — Property Qualifications imposed upon 
Representatives of the People and upon Electors — For 
Seventy-five years there Exists more or less Friction 
between the Governor and the House of Assembly — The 



16 NEW JEKSEY AS A COL 

Part played by Members of the Church of England, of 
the Society of Friends, and of the CaUdnistic Churches 
in the Struggle — The Poverty of the Colony — Local Con- 
ditions, as well as the Stupid Economic Policy of the 
Crown, Foster a Spirit of Unorganized Resistance — Char- 
acteristics of Parliamentary Legislation. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE BEGINNINGS OF TRANSPORTATION 227-237 

The Indian and his Canoe — The small River Craft of the 
English in East and West Jersey — Early Roads in East 
Jersey united the small Towns ; those of West Jersey 
connected then Distant County Capitals — The Thirty mile 
" Waste " between the Heads of Tide on the Delaware 
and Raritan Rivers an Obstacle to rapid Communication 
between New York and Philadelphia — Early " Stage 
Waggons" from Trenton, Bordentown, and Burlington 
to Amboy — Promoters of these Enterprises — Systems 
of Roads throughout the Colony at the Opening of the 
Revolution — Highwaymen and Horse Thieves. 



CHAPTER XIV 

CURRENCY AND COUNTERFEITING 239-259 

The Lenni-Lenap^ and his Wampimi — How it was Made 
and Its use among the Settlers — Legislation in East 
Jersey Regulating the Rate of Exchange — Names of 
Foreign Coins — West Jersey Legislates upon the Subject 
— Mark Newbie and his " Patrick's Pence " — The " Rosa 
Americana " Issue — The " Horse Head Coppers " of 1786- 
1788 — Early Mints at Morristown and Elizabeth, and the 
Experiments of the Mint-Masters — The Experience of 
the Colony with "Paper Bills" from 1709 to 1787— 
Counterfeiting and its Punishments. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE GENESIS OF COUNTIES, CITIES, AND 

TOWNSHIPS 261-276 

Earliest Comities set off in 1675, while Bergen, Middle- 
sex, Essex, and Monmouth wore Named and Defined in 



OXY AX]) AS A STATE 17 

1682 — In East Jersey, with Towns as Centers, the 
County Name becomes a Generic Terra — Somerset County 
set otf in 1688 — In West Jersey the County results 
largely from the Consolidation of Plantations — The Es- 
tablishment of '* Tenths" as Original County Boundaries 
— Burlington, Gloucester, Salem, and Cape May come 
into Existence — Gloucester the only County deriving its 
Origin from the Direct Action of its own People — Early 
Disputes as to County Lines — The Act of 1710 Defining 
Boundaries, and the Establishment of Hunterdon, Morris, 
Cumberland, and Sussex before the Revolution — Sources 
from which the Names of the Thirteen Colonial Counties 
were Derived — Warren, Mercer, Hudson, Camden, 
Passaic, Atlantic, and Union established between 1824 and 
the Civil War — Beginnings of Towns and Townships — 
Their Names and Characteristics — The Borough Charter 
of Trenton — Four Methods of P^stablishing Townships : 
by Order of the Court, by Act of the Legislature, by 
Royal Charter, and by Commissioners selected by the 
People. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE SEA COAST AND THE " PINES " 277-288 

The Character of the New Jersey Beaches on the Atlantic 
Coast — These Islands used as Grazing Grounds — The 
" Wild Cattle "—The Value of Hay and Wood to the Colo- 
nists — The Paradise of the Huntsman — " The Pines," and 
the Waste of Timber — Restrictive Legislation — Early Ex- 
ports of Beach and Upland Products — The West India 
Trade — Saw mills, Tar kilns, Sumac, Pot and Pearl 
ashes, and Peltries — " Natural Privileges " and " Com- 
mon Rights " — Later Development of the " Pines." 

CHAPTER XVII 

ORDINARIES, INNS, AND TAVERNS 289-303 

Pleasant Days at the Colonial Inns and the Daily Life of 
the Landlord — The Drinks that were Served — The First 
Ordinaries — How Licenses to sell Liquor were first 
Granted — " The Penalty of a Drunkard " — Sumptuary 
[Vol. 1] 



18 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

Legislation, and the sad Fate of Peter Groom — Early 
Tavern Keepers — The Sunday Laws of 1704 — Later 
Colonial Legislation — The Tavern becomes a " Seminary 
of Vice, Irreligion, and Profaneness," According to a 
Presentment of a Hmiterdon County Grand Jury. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

LAWYERS AND THE SUPREME COURT 305-317 

The History of the Bar before 1702 Obscure— The 
Caustic Comment of Gabriel Thomas — Nevill's Obser- 
vations on Jury Trials — Legislation regarding the Practice 
of Law from 1676 to 1702 — Unsavory Character of some 
Early Practitioners — The " Lay " Element among the 
Colonial Supreme Court Justices and Attorney-Generals 
of New Jersey — The Establishment of the Supreme 
Coui't and the First Proclamation of 1704 — The Seal of 
the Court and its History. 



CHAPTER XIX 

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 319-328 

Marriage, to the Calvinist and the Quaker, was not a 
Divine Sacrament — " Common Law " Unions — The first 
Legislature in East Jersey regulates the Performance of 
the Marriage Ceremony — The Marriage Customs of the 
Society of Friends — Some References to the Matter from 
the Burlington "Court Book" — The Act for the "Pre- 
vention of Clandestine Marriages " Remains the Law 
for Seventy-five Years — Terms of the Statute. 



CHAPTER XX 

RELIGIOUS LIFE OF THE DAY 329-346 

The Arrival in America of George Whitefield — His Ap- 
pearance in New Jersey and the Eft'ect of His Preaching — 
The Influence of Gilbert Temient and the Era of Religious 
Controversy — The Newspapers and their Part — What 



ONY AND AS A STATE 19 

Whitefield Accomplished— John Woolman, of Rancocas — 
His Early Life as Reflected iu his Journal — His Detiiiitiou 
of " True Religion " — Becomes the Apostle of the Aboli- 
tion Movement — The Doctrine of " Self Denial " — His 
" Journal " and its Literary Value — Statistics concerning 
the Strength of Religious Denominations in New Jersey ' 
in 1765 — Meeting Houses and Funerals. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE STATUS OF EDUCATION 347-368 

Schools among the Dutch and Swedes — Their System of 
Education — The First School at Bergen — Early Schools 
in East Jersey — Burlington, in 1682, Establishes a Trust 
Fund, Probably the First in the United States, for the 
Purposes of Public Education — The Germ of the "Artist- 
Artisan " Idea — Low State of Education in the Colony 
after 1 702 — The Private Schools and their Masters — The 
Foundation of the College of New Jersey and its Early 
History — Some of its Distinguished Colonial Graduates — 
The Beginnings of Rutgers College — The Character of 
Popular Literature — The Newspapers and Almanacs as 
Factors in Education. 



CHAPTER XXII 

NEW JERSEY IN ENGLAND'S WARS WITH SPAIN 

AND FRANCE 369-385 

The War of the Spanish Succession — Privateering off 
Sandy Hook — The Anglo-Spanish War of 1739— New 
Jersey Provincials in the West Indies — King George's 
War — The Siege of Louisburg — The Sufferings of the 
Jersey Soldiers at Albany — Some Familiar Comments 
upon the Conduct of the Quartermaster-General's Depart- 
ment — The French and Indian War — New Jersey Loyally 
Responds to the Call for Money, Men, and Provisions — 
The Patriotic Devotion of Colonel Schuyler — Indian War- 
fare in Sussex Coimty — The Attack on Fort Ticonderoga — 
— The Lenni-Lenapd Prove Traitorous — The Treaty at 
Crosswicks and the Capture of Oswego — The British 



20 NEW JEGRSEY AS A OOL 

Disasters in the Lake George Region — The Bravery of 
the New Jersey Provincials — Honors heaped upon Colonel 
Schuyler — The first appearance of the "Jersey Blues" 
— Medals given by the Legislature to Gallant Jerseymen 
— The Building of the Barracks — The Close of the War 
and an Expedition Against the West Indies. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

FROM CORNBURY TO FRANKLIN 387-396 

Lovelace Attempts to Pacify the Legislature and Correct 
Franklin's Mistakes — The Failures of Ingoldsby — Tur- 
bulent Times for Hunter and the Administration of the 
Scholarly Burnet — Montgomerie, Morris, Cosby, Ander- 
son, and Hamilton, and their brief Tenures of Office — 
Reasons, advanced in 1736, why New Jersey should 
have a Government separate from New York — Morris, 
Hamilton, and Reading, and a Period of Disputes — The 
Puritanical Belcher and his Excellent Administration — 
Pownall, Reading, Bernard, Boone, and Hardy. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE LAST OF THE ROYAL GOVERNORS 397-411 

The Pathos of Franklin's Position — His Endeavors to 
effect Reconciliation and to Lead the People of the Colony 
from the Rocks and Shoals of "Treason" — The Legis- 
lature in 1774 Establishes a " Standing Committee of 
Correspondence and Inquiry " — The Members of the 
Committee and their Duties — The Vehemence of Popular 
Discussions — Cotmcil in 1775 declares its Loyalty to the 
Crown — Franklin Addresses the House of Assembly and 
receives an Equivocal Answer — The Assembly in Febru- 
ary, 1775, Declares its Loyalty to the " Royal Person " 
— — and sets forth the Grievances of the Colony — The Co- 
lonial Council and Assembly Dissolve early in 1776, and 
Franklin is Assured of his Personal Safety — The Govern- 
or in January, 1776, retires to Perth Amboy — His Per- 
sonal Popularity — The Provincial Congress in June, 1776, 
refuses to obey the Governor's Proclamation, Declares he 



ONY AND AS A STATE 21 

has Acted in Contempt of Resolves of Congress, Discovers 
him to be an Enemy of the Liberties of his Country, and 
Refuses to allow Him his Salary — Under Orders, Colonel 
Nathaniel Heard arrests Franklin on June 17th, and upon 
the Governor's refusing to answer questions he is sent to 
Connecticut, to be Confined under the Authority of 
Governor Trumbull. 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE GATHERING STORM 413-422 

The Effect of the French and Indian War upon the Social 
and Political Life of New Jersey — The Colonists held 
that it was England's duty to Protect her Dependencies 
from Indian Raids, and that such Wealth as had been 
Acquired had been Obtained in Spite of Objectionable 
Parliamentary Legislation — William Franklin, the last 
Royal Governor, finds Discontent in 1763 — The Stamp 
Act in New Jersey — The " Sons of Liberty " and the 
Lawyers — The Economic Aspect of the " Prayer " of the 
Assembly of 1768 — "Taxation without Representation" 
-— — No Spirit in New Jersey favoring Independence as late 
as 1772 — The Colony Loyal to the " British Constitution" 

— Attitude of the Religious Denominations — Two Factors 

workmg for Association and Preparation for the Coming 
Struggle : the Committees of Correspondence and the 
Continental Congresses. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Adriaen Van der Donck's map of 1656 Frontispiece 

Andros, Sir Edmund Facing p. 166 

Cornbury, Lord, and his birthplace Facing p. o90 

Hudson, Henry S^^^T^ P- if. 

Map of New Jersey in 1680 Facing p. 264 

Stuyvesant, Peter Facmg p. 128 



Adolphus, Gustavus 97 

Albion Knights, medal of... 79 

Alexander, James 313 

American House at Had- 

donfield 303 

Amsterdam, Holland 112 

Andros double seal 142 

Anne, Queen 211 

Argillite implements 

33, 37, 40, 45, 50 

Aztec coin 242 

Basking Ridge, school house 

at 351 

Battles with the Indians. .66, 71 

Benin's map of 1764 171 

Bergen and Buyten Tuyn in 

1660 225 

Bergen, church at, in 1680.. 344 
Bergen County in 1693 (map) 181 
Berkeley and Carteret, seal 130 
Berkeley. Lord John, auto- 
graph 129 

Bibles 321, 346 

Boston Massacre 422 

Boudinot arms 180 

Bows and arrows 67 

Bradford house at Plymouth 178 
Bradford, William. auto- 
graph 179 

Burlington, first Friends 

meeting house in 333 

Burnet, Governor William.. 391 

Burr, Rev. Aaron 396 

Canopied pew in Christ 

Church, Shrewsbury 341 

Carr, Robert, autograph — 127 
Carteret and Berkeley, seal 130 

Carteret arms 137 

Carteret, Philip, autograph. 132 
Carteret, Sir George, auto- 
graph 129 



Castle Point 113 

Cedar swamp, an early 280 

Charles 1 75 

Charles II 125 

Chatelaine, a colonial 324 

Christ Church, Shrewsbury. 340 
Church at Bergen in 1680.... 344 

Church in Newark, first 343 

City hall at The Hague 276 

Coin, first 251 

Coin of 1652 243 

Colonial horseshoes 201 

Colonial jack, the 420 

Colonial plow, a 196 

Colonial tea set 274 

Colve, Anthony, autograph.. 140 

Condict, Ira 365 

Conover house near Mata- 

wan 152 

Continental currency. 254, 257, 259 

Copper tokens 250. 258 

Cornbury in female attire. . 213 

Cosby, William 392 

Country church, a 338 

Country tavern, a 2?3 

Crane Tavern, the 294 

Crosswicks, Friends meeting 

house at 339 

Crown: George II 244 

Crown: James II 246 

Currency, continental 

254, 256, 257. 259 

Davies, Samuel 3tiA 

De Vries's Journal, title- 
page of 107 

Dickinson, Jonathan 358 

Dongan arms 162 

Dongan's house on Staten 

Island 163 

Duke of York, seal of 138 

Dutch country people 177 



24 



NEW JEESEY AS A COL 



FAOE 

Dutch patroon 103 

Dutch windmill 118 

Early tavern yard 234 

East and West Jersey In 

1677 (map) 154 

East Jersey, seal of 148 

Edwards, Jonathan 359 

Farm scene, a 190 

Finley, Samuel 362 

First American paper money 257 

First church in Newark 343 

First map of New York City 214 
First Methodist Church in 

America 334 

First money coined by the 

United States 251 

First view of New Amster- 
dam 119 

Flag of Holland 117 

Flag of the thirteen colo- 
nies 161 

Flag of the West India 

Company 93 

"Floreat Rex" 247 

Forest vista, a 283 

Fort Christina and vicinity. 89 

Fox, George 145 

Franklin, William 399 

Friends meeting house in 

Burlington 333 

Friends meeting house at 

Crosswicks 339 

George 1 390 

George I, great seal of 400 

George II, great seal of Ill 

George III, statue of 403 

Great seal of 1691 159 

Green, Ashbel 363 

Grinding corn 19S 

Guinea: George III 248 

Haddonfleld, American 

House at 303 

"Half Moon," the 105 

Holland, flag of 117 

Hornblend axe 46 

Horseshoes, colonial 201 

Hudson, scenes on the.. 157, 382 
Hunter, Robert, arms and 

autograph 389 

Indian ceremonial stone 55 

Indian chieftain .385 

Indian conflicts 66, 71 

Indian mortar and pestle... 35 
Indian specimens (polished 
flesher and semi-lunar 
knife) -. 59 



Indian totemic signatures... 62 

Indian vase 38 

Indian vessel 42 

Indian wigwam 57 

Indians 53, 56, 61, 63, 68, 80 

Innkeeper's bill of 1795 29S 

James II 164 

James II, seal of 165 

Johnson, Sir William 380 

Kieft's house and church — 115 

Liberty-cap cent 253 

Liberty placard 419 

Mammoth or mastodon tusk 49 
Manhattan Island in the six- 
teenth century 76 

"Mayflower," the 175 

Medal for Porto-Bello, Ad- 
miral Vernon 372 

Medal of the Albion Knights 79 
Methodist Church, first, in 

America 334 

Minult, Peter, autograph 108 

Monmouth Court House 308 

Morris arms 394 

Morris, Lewis 395 

Nassau Hall: Princeton Col- 
lege 361 

New Amsterdam, tirst view 

of 119 

New Amsterdam, seal of 123 

New Jersey gentleman, a 195 

New Jersey stage coach 237 

New Jersey village, a 266 

"New Netherland," the 176 

New Netherland, seal of 105 

New Sweden, map 87 

New Sweden, seal of 98 

New York City, first map of 214 

New York in 1673 229 

New York from New Jersey 

in 1732 265 

New York in 1740 233 

New York, seal of, in 1686.. 168 

New York, view of 376 

Newark, first church in 343 

Nicolls, Richard, autograph. 135 
North River, view across, in 

1797 271 

Original thirteen colonies, 

map of 26 

Palatines, relics of 82 

Palisaded village 65 

Paper money, first American 257 

Patrick pence 247 

Patroon, Dutch 109 

Penn arms 185 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



25 



PAGE 

Penn, William H7 

Pew in Christ Church, 

Shrewsbury 311 

"Pine-tree shilling" 255 

"Pines," among the 281 

Pistol -m 

Plow, a colonial 196 

Princeton College: Nassau 

Hall 361 

Punch bowl 291 

Relics of the Palatines 82 

Residence of Lord Stirling. . 406 

River scene, a 288 

Rosa Americana farthing... 24S 
Rosa Americana halfpennies 249 

Rosa Americana penny 250 

Rutgers College in 1842 364 

Scenes on the Hudson... 157, 3S2 
School house at Basking 

Ridge 351 

Schuyler arms 379 

Seal, Andros, the 142 

Seal of Berkeley and Car- 
teret 130 

Seal of the Duke of York... 138 

Seal of East Jersey 148 

Seal of George 1 400 

Seal of George III 411 

Seal of James II 165 

Seal of New Amsterdam... 123 

Seal of New Netherland 105 

Seal of New Sweden 98 

Seal of New York in 16S6.... 168 

Seal of 1691 159 

Seal of the Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel 

in Foreign Parts 354 

Seal of "West Jersey 149 

Shilling: George II 245 

Shrewsbury, Christ Church 340 

Silver dollar of 1794 252 

Sleigh of 1788 231 

Snuff boxes 202 

Stage coach, a New Jersey. 237 

Stamp-act stamps 417,418 

Stirling, Lord, residence of. 406 



PAOB 

Stuyvesant, Peter, tablet... 128 
Stuyvesant's Bowery house. Ill 
Stuyvesant's home, " The 

Whitehall" 95 

Stuyvesant's pear tree 94 

Tankard, an ancient 301 

Tavern, a country 293 

Tavern yard, an early 234 

Tea set, colonial 274 

Thirteen colonies, flag of... 161 
Thirteen colonies, map of.. 26 
Title-page of De Vries's 

Journal 107 

Title-page of "Van der 

Donck's Journal 3bS 

Totemic signatures, Indian. 62 
Tusk, mammoth or mastodon 49 
Usselinx, Willem, autograph 88 
"Van der Donck's Journal, 

title-page of 36S 

Van Twiller, Wouter, auto- 
graph 110 

"Van "Vorst homestead at 

Ahasimus 114 

Vase 3S1 

Vernon, Admiral, medal for 

Porto-Bello 372 

Views ....101, 186, 194, 205, 206, 
269, 271, 283, 284, 287, 288, 376, 382 

Wampum belt 241 

West and East Jersey in 

1677 (map) 154 

West house near Matawan . . 152 
West India Company's flag 93 
West India Company's house 116 
West India Company's store- 
house 126 

West Jersey, seal of 149 

"Whitehall," Stuyvesant's 

home 95 

Wigwam, Indian 57 

William III 166 

Winthrop, John, of Connec- 
ticut 139 

Winthrop, John, of Massa- 
chusetts 91 




THE ORIGINAL THIRTEEN COLONIES. 



CHAPTER I 

The Antiquity of Man in the Dblaavake 
Valley 

Coutributed by Dr. Clmrles C. Abbott 



THE claim of satisfactory evidence of 
the extreme antiquity of man in 
the valley of the Delaware River 
has been soberly discussed and 
intemperately ridiculed, but this 
is no valid reason why the truth should not 
be ascertained. If man in a paleolithic stage 
of culture did exist on the Atlantic seaboard 
of North America, then we have a basis upon 
which to build — a tangible starting point from 
which to date a history of human activities 
on this continent. Shutting out all offered 
evidence of paleolithic man, we have but an 
immense array of facts, largely unrelated, and 
the greater portion sadly distorted and mis- 
leading because of the reckless theories set forth 
with them by their discoverers, and undoubtedly 
there never has been, in the whole range of scien- 
tific agitation of a simple question, as great a vol- 
ume of reckless assertion, illogical deduction, and 
disregard of exact statement. The main question 
was often wholly lost sight of, and the author's 
sole purpose that of demonstrating some one else 
in error. Predetermination on the part of many 
has been fatal to the value of their field work. 
Convinced on theoretical grounds, such are neces- 
sarily blinded when on the spot where positive 
evidence occurs. 

There probably would not have been as much 



30 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




INWOOn STONF 



attention paid to the subject of man's growth in 
culture on this continent had not the proposition 
of a sequence from paleolithic to Indian, with an 
intervening period, seemed to necessitate a dating 
back to the glacial epoch, which naturally 
brought geological erudition to bear upon the 
question, and since then, most surprisingly, there 
has been confusion worse confounded, rather than 
a flood of light. Much has been written, but we 
can not yet be confident which author is most 
nearly correct; and the latest report on the sur- 
face geology of the Delaware Valley, showing sad 
evidences of haste, is vitiated by evident determi- 
nation to modernize every trace of man, whether 
the facts warranted such procedure or not. 
. What is held, primarily, to be an evidence of 
paleolithic man is a wrought stone implement 
that in Europe was characteristic of his handi- 
work. In the valley of the Delaware this same 
form of implement has been confidently asserted 
to be a rejected piece of stone — usually argillite 
— that failed to lend itself to reduction to a fin- 
ished blade or spear point. If this could be estab- 
lished as of invariable application, however the 
supposed " reject " occurred, then the whole mat- 
ter would be brought to a quick conclusion. But 
the " reject " theory has utterly failed of estab- 
lishment. The typical paleolithic implement is 
not characteristic of the refuse of an arrow-mak- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 31 



er's workshop site, and the familiar arrow points 
of small size, as well as the long, thin blades of sev- 
eral times their length, were reduced from masses 
greatly larger than the desired form. The refuse 
of many a chipping site shows this conclusively; 
and, as hundreds of failures demonstrate, many 
an arrowhead was made from a pebble but a trifle 
larger than the finished object. 

But admit, for argument's sake, the identity in 
shape of a " reject " and a " paleolithic " imple- 
ment; this does not prove their identity in age and 
origin, and it is not an unwarranted or illogical 
suggestion to draw a distinction between the two, 
where the conditions under which they occur sug- 
gest a possibility of diverse history. Rather than 
demonstrating that all rudely chipped stones are 
"failures," it should be shown that paleolithic 
man, as we know of him in Europe, could not pos- 
sibly have existed here. This has not only never 
been attempted, but the conditions during and 
immediately subsequent to the glaciation of the 
river valley have been asserted, time and again, 
to have been favorable for man's existence. 
Furthermore, it has not been shown that a typical 
paleolithic implement could not have been avail- 
able on this continent, as it undoubtedly was in 
Europe, as an effective weapon, and it must be re- 
membered that the fauna of the Delaware Valley 
was, in glacial times, very like that of parts of 



32 



NEAV JERSEY AS A COL 




ORNAMENTAL L.iir,. 



Europe in what we may call the reindeer period. 
Like conditions may not have produced like re- 
sults in the case of early man, but what was prac- 
ticable in Europe was certainly so in America, 
and the question resolves itself into that of deter- 
mining if any trace of man that has been discov- 
ered in the valley of the Delaware can be dated 
back to a time preceding the Indian as he was 
when first he came in contact with the European. 
In other words, did the Indian bring his art with 
him from Europe or Asia, or did he experience a 
growth in culture from paleolithic simplicity to 
neolithic complexity? 

The whole subject hinges on the distribution of 
these traces of man. If from the first day of his 
occupancy until the European replaced the Indian 
the immediate valley of the Delaware River had 
undergone no change, then the imperishable relics 
of the first and last savage would remain asso- 
ciated, and position alone would tell nothing con- 
cerning any particular object's age or origin; but, 
at the present day, except the contents of graves, 
not a stone implement of the Delaware Indians 
rest where chance or the intention of its one-time 
owner placed it. Indeed, save a few bowlders of 
the largest size, few natural objects on the imme- 
diate sliores of the river are as first seen by Will- 
iam Penn and his associates. This fact has not 
been duly considered, and unwarranted conclusions 



^-ef^' 



;sfr.v 



OXY AND AS A STATE 33 

have been published as established truths — all, of 
course, eliminating antiquity from the Indian his- 
tory of the region. The fact that a so-called pa- 
leolithic implement was found lying on the sur- 
face of the river's shore has resulted in a pen pic- 
ture of a modern Indian attempting to fashion a 
blade and tossing the pebble aside in disgust. 
Why, indeed, could not an Indian walk on ex- 
posed gravel and pick up a pebble as well as we 
can to-day? 

There are two considerations to which we must 
give heed when this question is asked. We are, 
in the first place, tacitly informed that the Indian 
was given to chipping stone in this hap-hazard 
way to supply a sudden need upon the spot, all of 
which is not only not a reasonable assumption, 
but absolutely incorrect, as argillite bowlders and ™*-^ 

pebbles, which are not abundant in the gravels, argillite implemknt. 

(Prom quaternary graveU at Tren- 

were not habitually used, but, instead, the min- *""■ v feet beneath th.«urta,e.) 
eral was systematically mined and selected with 
skill, so that failures were reduced to a minimum. 
Then, again, if the object as found has been lying 
undisturbed on the river shore for centuries, — 
two and one-half centuries at least, — why is it 
that the chips are not there also? These are 
never found under such circumstances. In fact, 
they are very rarely found at all in the gravel 
where the implement itself occurs, and in num- 
bers they should exceed the " reject " or finished 



34 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

object at least as ten to one. Furthermore, we are 
asked to believe that the river shore where we 
find, rude implements is the same to-day as when 
the Indian wandered along it centuries ago. 

A very cursory glance at the Delaware River 
shows clearly how the never-resting tidal flow 
wears away the shore, carrying sand and fine 
gravels from one point and spreading it elsewhere 
to form a sand bar, it may be, and turning the 
channel from one side of the stream to the other, 
and so exposing long reaches of the shore to wast- 
ing, that for many a year had been fixed and ap- 
parently secure. Often the mud is entirely re- 
moved from the underlying gravel, and abundant 
traces of Indian occupation are brought to light; 
and, less frequently, so strong a current attacks 
a given point that even the gravel is moved and 
deep holes are formed, to be filled in time with the 
wasting shore from a point perhaps a mile away. 
This is the story of the Delaware River of to-day, 
and so it has been for centuries; and yet we are 
asked to believe that we can fill the moccasin 
prints of the Indian by walking now along the 
water's edge. It may be submitted that it is ask- 
ing a great deal too much. 

It has been suggested that rudely chipped im- 
plements, when found on the gravelly shore of the 
river, have fallen out from the bank and rolled 
down from where they had long been lying. This 



ONY AND AS A STATE 35 

is not at all improbable; but how does this mod- 
ernize the object, when the implement-bearing 
gravel extends quite to the surface? The pebbles 
and bowlders at the top of the bank are clearly 
as much a part of the deposit as are those at its 
base, and while the surface may be — is, in fact — 
less ancient than the deeper gravels, still they can 
not be dissociated and it is a significant fact that 
we find, on the gravel at the foot of the bluff or 
other exposure, only the rude argillite objects at 
the water's edge or on the flat laid bare at low 
tide, and not a general assortment of the Indian's 
handiwork, including pottery; and we must not 
overlook the fact that the " gravel-bed " imple- 
ments bear evidence of all the conditions to which 
the gravel itself has been subjected — ^this one 
stained by manganese, that incrusted with limon- 
ite, this fresh as the day it was chipped, because 
lost in sand and water and not subsequently ex- 
posed to the atmosphere; that buried and un- 
earthed, rolled, scratched, and water-worn until 
much of its artificiality has disappeared. The his- 
tory of almost every specimen is written upon it, 
and not one tells such a story as has been told 
about it by the advocates of the " Indian-reject " 
theory. 

Much has been written on the natural history 
of the gravel that is so marked a feature of the 
Delaware River Valley, particularly at the head 





INDIAN MORTAK AND PKSTI.K. 



36 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

of tidewater, and almost every essay differs in 
more or less degree from its fellows in the mat- 
ter of the gravel's age as a well-defined deposit. 
No one can question the agencies by which it was 
brought to where we now find it. Ice and water 
did the work, nor have they ceased entirely to add 
to the bulk transported in strictly glacial times — 
perhaps it were better to say in superlatively 
glacial time, as the river even now can be posi- 
tively glacial upon occasion. The main channel 
has often been completely blocked with ice and 
the water forced into new directions and spread 
over the lowlands or flats, which it denudes of its 
surface soil, and once within recent years the 
stream found an old channel, deepened it, and for 
a time threatened to leave a flourishing riverside 
town an inland one. Ice accumulated in this way 
year after year must necessarily affect the river's 
banks, and yet the extent of " damage " is trifling 
usually in comparison with that of the water, par- 
ticularly when agitated by passing steamboats or 
violent winds; and now, too, the ice of our present 
winters does not transport coarse pebbles to any 
significant extent. This is substantiated since the 
examination given acres of ice, when the river was 
gorged with it, some years ago. It was possible 
to walk for miles over the ice, and to see it under 
exceedingly favorable circumstances, and a most 
careful search failed to reveal a stone larger than 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



37 



a pigeon's egg incased in this ice, which was all 
gently floated from far up the stream and 
stranded here; and w^here piled up upon the shores 
it usually remains until melted, and really acts 
as armor plate, protecting the ground from abra- 
sion when the floods incident to the " break-up " 
prevail. 

Such are the present-day considerations, and 
they have a direct bearing upon the question of 
man's antiquity here because, first, the river val- 
ley has not varied for hundreds of years, except in 
becoming wider, the low shores receding, and the 
stream becoming broader and more shallow. In 
earliest Indian times the river was subject to 
freshets and ice gorges as now, but never did the 
water become so dammed up as to overflow the 
broad plateaus, areas of glacial gravel, that at 
the close of the glacial period were within the 
boundary of the river. The Delaware was a very 
different stream then — crescendo for thousands of 
years, and diminuendo for thousands since — until 
now it barely hints at what it once was. But not 
even in the height of its glacial activity was the 
climate so severe that the waters contained no 
fish, nor the forests of the high surrounding hills 
harbored no game. Never was it as bleak as the 
arctic region of to-day, and as man maintains a 
footing there, why should he not have done so 




ARGII.LITK IMPLEMENT. 



iim (juaternary gravels at Trenton, 
ir (eet beneath the surface. 
Pide ami edge views.) 



38 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




INDIAN VA8K. 



here, where life was ever more easily sustained? 
True; but did he live here in glacial time? 

It has been stated in the most positive manner, 
which only positive evidence could warrant, that 
so-called paleolithic implements have not been 
found in situ in gravel deposits at a distance from 
the river, and all such as appeared to be in the 
gravel, were recent intrusions. This statement, 
in its several parts and its entirety, is absolutely 
incorrect and inexcusable. It is to be explained, 
however, because avowedly predetermined. 
Wherever the glacial gravel of the Delaware tide- 
water region is found, there paleolithic imple- 
ments occur, as they also do on and in the surface 
of areas beyond the gravel boundary. 

We accept the statement that post-glacial floods 
inhumed all traces of man found beneath the su- 
perficial soils, and find that, if these traces are 
considered in that light, some mysterious power 
was behind the senseless flood and always buried 
paleolithic implements far down in the gravel, 
and then selected argillite artifacts of more spe- 
cialized forms for the overlying sands, and re- 
served the pottery and arrow points for the vege- 
tation-sustaining soil. 

This, of course, is absurd; but such is the actual 
order of occurrence of the traces of early man in 
the upland fields, and these are to be considered 
carefullv before a final conclusion can be reached. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 39 

The broad, elevated plateau extending eastward 
from the present bank of the river offers facilities 
for studying the evidences of man's occupancy in 
this region such as are to be found in few locali- 
ties. The principal reason for this is that almost 
no local disturbance has occurred since the orig- 
inal deposition of the sand and clay that overlies 
the gravel and underlies the soil. 

The natural history of these underlying sands 
has recently received a good deal of attention, be- 
cause, unlike the deeper gravels, there is perfect 
accord as to the occurrence therein of artificially 
chipped objects; and the suggestion that they are 
of intrusive origin being set aside as untenable, 
the geologists are now divided on the question 
whether the sand is wind-blown, a modified dune, 
and so not necessarily old even in years, or the re- 
sult of intermitting overflow of water, usually 
carrying a considerable amount of sand and often 
heavy with washings from some distant clay 
bank. The objections to the " eolian " theory are 
that pebbles and bowlders, even of considerable 
weight, are scattered at all elevations through the 
sand, and these pebbles, as a rule, do not present 
any evidence of exposure to eroding sands, but 
are smooth and glassy, or the typical water-worn 
pebbles of a brook or the river bed; and more sig- 
nificant is the fact that the sands themselves are 
of different degrees of fineness, layer upon layer. 



40 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

and are nowhere clean or free from clay; and fi- 
nally the thin layers of clay are clearly continnons 
orer such extensive areas that in no sense can 
they be called segregations of that material. On 
the other hand, a carefully instituted comparison 
of the sand from the stirface of the field to its 
junction with the gravel proper shows its identity 
with a deposit made by water in comparatively re- 
cent times. Xo difference whatever could be de- 
tected. The sand dune, modified by rains and 
finally leveled to a plain, presents, in section, no 
such appearance as the sands that overlie the 
gravels of glacial origin. Without a scintilla of 
reason, however, many geologists declare that no 
deposit of sand can be of any geological signifi- 
cance if it contains traces of man not clearly intrusive. 
By them, the modernity of man in this region is 
assumed and the facts are expected to conform to 
the assumption. To discard a theory and accept 
a fact is too great a tax upon their time and pa- 
tience. 

The presence of these artificial flakes, blades, 
and other forms of simple implements can only 
be explained by considering them as a constituent 
part of the containing bed, having been brought 
hither by the same agency that brought the sand, 
pebbles, and clay. When standing before a new- 
ly made section of this implement-bearing deposit 
it is easy to picture the slow progress of its accu- 



OXT AVD AS A STATE il 

mulanon. The broad plain h.as t»een subjecied lo 
overflow, now of waier bearing onlv sand, and 
then of mnddy water: now with cnrrent strijng 
enough to roll small pebbles troia some distant 
point, and then periods when the sun shone on 
the new dep«:»sit, •irie<i it, and the loose sand was 
rippled bv the win<i- Floods of greater Tolnme 
occasionallT swept acrc»ss the plain and ice-in- 
cased pebbles were dropped npon its snrface, and 
with this bnilding np of the plateau to a higher 
level there were also br«:>ught to it traces of man's 
haniiiwork. Of this there can be no doubt now. 
Tears ago I endeavored to show from the distribn- 
tion of rude argillite implements of sp»ecialized 
forms, as arrow points and small blades, trinmr'i 
flakes and scrai>ers. that these objects were older. 
as a class, than jasper and quartz implements and 
weapons, and that pottery was made onlv in the 
rudest way before " flint " chipping — ^jasx*er and 
quartz — was establishe^i. The more exhaustively 
this subject was followed up the proposition be- 
came more evidently true, and to-day it is unquali- 
fiedly confirmed by the results obtaineii from sys- 
tematically digging deeply over wide areas of 
country, and the systematic and truly scientific 
gathering of quite a half a million of objects fash- 
ioned and used by early man in this river valley. 
The fact that argillite continued in use until the 
verv last does not affect this conclusion. There is 




42 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

no clearer evidence in paleontology that one fos- 
siliferous stratum ante-dates another than that 
the maker of argillite artifacts of specialized 
shapes preceded the Indian as first known to Euro- 
peans. 

As the high land, now forty or more feet above 
the river and beyond the reach of its floods of 
greatest magnitude, was once continually over- 
flowed and gradually built up by the materials the 
water spread upon it, it is evident that the condi- 
tions were materially different when such things 
happened from what now obtains, and the whole 
conflguration of the country to-day points to but 
the one conclusion: that these plateau-building 
floods occurred so long ago as when the river 
flowed at a higher level and possessed a greater 
transporting power than at present. This, it is 
true, was long after the coarse gravel and huge 
bowlders were transported from the hillsides of 
the upper valley, but it was before the river was 
confined to its present channel, and more signifi- 
cantly before what may be called the soil-making 
period, itself of long duration, and the time of the 
Indian as such. Not an argillite chip from the 
sands beneath the soil but speaks of the distant 
day when this plateau was an almost barren plain, 
and man saw it, roamed over it, and perhaps dwelt 
upon it, when but the scantiest vegetation dotted 



AN INDIAN VKS8EL. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 43 

its surface, and only upon the hills beyond its 
boundary were trees and herbage. 

Even if we consider the agency of the streams 
that now are but insignificant inflowing brooks in 
spreading, during their freshet stages, sand over 
level areas, we must still go back to a time when 
they were streams of infinitely greater magnitude 
than they have been for many centuries, and be- 
fore, too, the Indian was a skilled chipper of jas- 
per and a potter of taste, else why the absence of 
these products of his skill in the deeper sands? 
It matters not how we look at it, whether as 
geologists or archaeologists, or whether it is all 
post-glacial, or the starting point is still so dis- 
tant as ice-age activities, the sequence of events 
is unaffected. We still have paleolithicity in the 
gravel, argillite and the discovery of pottery syn- 
chronous with the deposition of the gravel-cap- 
ping sand, and, lastly, the Indian, reaching far 
down into historic time. 

THE TRENTON GRAVELS ^ 

The Trenton gravels have furnished much dis- 
cussion and some evidence of the existence of man 
in America during a paleolithic age. The Dela- 
ware River having a relation to the glaciers of 
the northern United States, is the only one having 
a valley which, although filled with glacial ice. 



1 Contributed by Thomas Wilaon. 



44 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

served as a conduit or trench by which the drain- 
age was collected and, passing under the glaciers 
through the moraines at the Delaware Water Gap 
and beyond, carried the sand and gravel and other 
eroded material to the mouth of the river (then at 
Trenton). Here the detritus was projected into 
the still water of the bay and deposited in strata 
of sand and gravel as found to-day. It is the only 
river of theNorthern Atlantic whose condition and 
geologic formation can be said to resemble the 
Somme, the Seine, the Marne, and other rivers in 
France, and the Ouse, Little Ouse, the Solent, and 
others in England, the valleys or terraces of which 
have furnished paleolithic implements associated 
with the bones of extinct animals. The gravels 
thus deposited form the plateau or valley in which 
the City of Trenton is situated. It extends to the 
eastward of the present channel between two and 
three miles in a horseshoe shaped deposit, with a 
corresponding narrower and longer extension on 
the west side. Some misunderstanding has oc- 
curred over the Trenton gravels, and an endeavor 
will here be made to simplify the matter by re- 
ducing it to its lowest terms. 

The emhoHchure of the river was a great saucer- 
like cavity wherein the gravels were deepest in 
the center, about forty feet, gradually becoming 
less until they approach, and finally arrive at, the 
edge. On the southern edge of this saucer-like 



ONY AND AS A STATE 45 

cavity where the river became part of the bay the 
glacial deposits ended in a ridge of gravel, now 
a bluff, which swept out into deep water. 

Much discussion has been had, which I think 
is largely irrelevant to the present question, over 
the deposits at the edge of this bluff, the principal 
seat, and that which has received the greatest at- 
tention, being what is known as the Lalor farm. 
In this field, near the bluff and for many yards 
back, is a top deposit which at its deepest place 
is about thirty or more inches. It is sand and 
clay, colored red and yellow. The contention over 
this stratum has been whether it was part of the 
glacial gravels brought down by the river and so 
formed part of the original glacial deposit, or 
had been driven up over the bluff by the prevail- 
ing southerly winds and so formed a layer over the 
glacial deposits. 

Long discussions have taken place in the deter- 
mination of these two questions. The latest report 
is to be found in the Proceedings of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, of 
the meeting held at Detroit in 1897. 

The discussion turned almost wholly upon the 
industry indicated by the objects found in this up- 
per stratum. My opinion, expressed at that time, 
was that paleolithic man was not in issue during 
the investigation of that layer. Evidence concern- 
ing his existence in that locality must be gathered 



(From quaternary gravels at Trenton, 
6 feet beneath the aurfare.) 



46 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




HORNBLEND AXP'.. 



from the stratified glacial gravels which lie be- 
neath this upper stratum. It was conceded by all 
the geologists who made any examination of the 
locus in quo that whatever might be their opinion 
as to the upper layer, whether it was deposited by 
wind and belonged to modern Indians, or depos- 
ited by water and belonged to the glacial epoch, 
the various strata beneath this upper layer were 
glacial gravels which had been brought down by 
the river and deposited as they then appeared. 

The condition of this upper layer and the con- 
tention which grew out of it is thus explained at 
length in order that it may be clearly understood 
that no claim is really made that it furnishes evi- 
dence concerning the existence or non-existence 
of paleolithic man. The contention at Detroit was 
confined to the formation and character of the up- 
per layer and the objects found therein. The ques- 
tion concerning paleolithic man, so far as it re- 
lates to Trenton, can only be decided by the imple- 
ments and objects found in the glacial sand and 
gravel beneath the upper layer of red and yellow 
clay and sand. 

There are three sorts of evidence that have been 
claimed for the Trenton gravels as testifying to 
the existence of paleolithic man in America: (1) 
the implements, principally of argillite, found in 
the undisturbed and stratified glacial gravels, 
which so greatly resemble the Chell^en imple- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 47 

ments of Europe as to produce conviction in the 
minds of many of the similarity of culture and in- 
dustry of the man who made them; (2) the re- 
mains of extinct animals in these gravels similar 
to those found in the like gravels of Europe; and 
(3) the remains of man himself. 

The first proposition has been argued many 
times, and conflicting and contrary opinions have 
been announced. The only possible way in which 
any determination could be had upon this branch 
of the argument is that persons who are ac- 
quainted with the implements of Western Europe 
and with the stratified river gravels in which they 
occur should themselves see and inspect the im- 
plements and the deposits, and from their expe- 
rience and knowledge obtained in Europe make 
comparison and be able to determine the similari- 
ties between them. 

MM. Albert Gaudry and Marcellin Boul^, cele- 
brated French paleontologists, who have always 
been interested in the relations of the ancient man 
to the animals of the quaternary period, visited 
Trenton during their visit to America in attend- 
ance upon the fifth Geologic International Con- 
gress. They had visited and examined with a crit- 
ical eye the gravels of Trenton, and reported their 
visit and conclusions in L'Anthropologie, IV, No. 
1 (Jan.-Feb., 1893). 



48 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

From the geologic point of view the question appears to me still 
more clear. . . . We then went into a sand bank which had 
been exploited by and for the railroad, and there found ourselves 
in the presence of an alluvial formation of sand, gravel, rolled 
stone, and sometimes large blocks. We could easily have per- 
suaded ourselves that we were in the valley of the Seine or the 
Marne as in that of the Delaware, for the lithologic elements were 
not different. There is the same similitude in America and in 
Europe in the deposits which contain the paleolithic implements as 
there is in the implements themselves. There can be no doubt as 
to the quaternary age of these deposits ; they reproduce exactly the 
stratigraphic dispositions of the paleolithic alluvial in the north of 
France and the south of England. The gravels of Trenton are 
intact, their beds are well defined, and they are covered with a bed 
of vegetable earth of which the separation is evident. 

The implements themselves found in these grav- 
els by Dr. Abbott, by Professor Putnam, and by 
those working under them during their investiga- 
tion of these gravels, are to be seen in the Pea- 
body Museum of American Archaeology and Eth- 
nology at Cambridge, Mass., where they can be 
compared with paleolithic implements from 
Europe, and the similarity of appearance will at 
once be manifest. 

Second, as to the bones of extinct quaternary 
animals, it has already been explained that these 
were rarely found in America, and such as had 
been found were under different conditions from 
those found in Europe. A fragment of a tusk 
(the outer end or point) of either mammoth or 
mastodon, two and one-half feet long and about 
four inches in diameter at the place of fracture, 



ONY AND AS A STATE 49 

was fouud in the stratified glacial gravels at Tren- 
ton by some students belonging to Rutgers Col- 
lege in New Brunswick, N. J., and was carried by 
them to their alma mater, where it was deposited 
and where it is yet to be seen. It shows no human 
handiwork, and its only bearing on this point is 
that it shows that remains of these animals were 
present and deposited at the same time and in the 
same manner as were the paleolithic stone imple- 
ments conceded to have been made by man. 

Third, the Trenton gravels for several years 
have been excavated by the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road Company and the gravel carried away for use 
as ballast. During a portion of this time the 
Peabody Museum has kept a man on watch for 
any archaeological objects exposed. On December 
1, 1899, this guardian, Ernest Volk, visiting 
the excavation, saw a bone in the gravels at a 
depth of seven feet beneath the surface and four 
feet into the stratified glacial gravels. After 
photographing it in place and making all neces- 
sary preliminary examinations, he extracted it 
from its bed and reported it with all information 
to Professor Putnam. It was submitted to the 
anatomists for examination, who reported it part 
of a human femur. This report has not been pub- 
lished, awaiting the result of investigations and 
analysis, but the conclusion as to the human char- 
acter of the bone seems well established. 



// 



MK^T OF MAMMOTH OR 
MASTODON TUSK. 



60 NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 

Implements have been found generally through- 
out the United States which, in form, style, size, 
appearance, mode of manufacture, and probable 
use, have great resemblance to the paleolithic im- 
plements of Europe. This question was argued 
with considerable elaboration and illustration be- 
fore the Congr^s International des Am^ricanistes, 
Paris, 1890 (published in the Compte-Rendu de la 
Huitieme Session). It pointed out the similarity 
between these American and the European paleo- 
lithic implements, and declared, because of this 
similarity, it might be assumed at least as a work- 
ing hypothesis that they belonged to the same 
stage of culture. 




ARGILIJTK IMPLEMENT. 

(From quaternary ftravela at Trenton, 'i?, feat 
beneatb the surface. Side and edge TiewB.) 



C H A P T E li II 
Indians of New Jeksey 



IOST in the twilight of race-myth and 
of world-wide superstition, which 
. may forever hide the beginnings of 
.^^ the human race, the origin of the 
North American Indian remains an 
attractive mystery. The one great riddle of the 
ethnological sphynx has been held close; the very 
diversity of answers being proof rather of the in- 
genuity of the processes of human reasoning than 
of any conclusive line of argument and satisfae^^ 
tory deduction. 

It was the gold-seeking Spanish adventurer, 
bringing to the New World a strange admixture 
of religious fanaticism, chivalry, commercialism, 
and cruelty, who attributed to the Indian an ori- 
gin in the home of that of the Father of Lies. 
" From Hell they came," he said, " and they are 
devils incarnate guarding the hidden treasures of 
the earth," a view which tinctured much of the 
thought of the English colonists and found its ex- 
pression in certain forms of later popular litera- 
ture. Not that this was the usual standpoint of 
the missionaries, yet even such a man as the saint- 
ly Brainerd as late as the middle of the eighteenth 
century, in New Jersey, cried aloud that the red- 
men would not hear the call of grace, and be- 
lieved them to be children of evil. 

Sweeping aside such an hypothesis, it was early 
contended that the Indian was a descendant of the 




/■f' 



54 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. For this view, which 
was largely theological, and had color of scien- 
tific possibility, there were many advocates. 

It pleased the theologians of the colonies, 
whose knowledge of anthropology was radically 
less than their piety, to consider the redmen as 
lost or, at least, wandering sheep. There was 
something in the nature of a vast tribal romance, 
in the attempt to show, by comparisons of lan- 
guage, customs, and personal appearance, that 
the Indian and the Hebrew had a common start- 
ing point. Samuel Smith, the historian of the 
colony of New Jersey, was captivated by the 
possibilities of such a proposition, while the pa- 
triotic Elias Boudinot, marshalling previous ar- 
guments, in his " Star in the West," if he does 
not convince modern investigators, furnishes food 
for the curious in his attempt to settle the ques- 
tion. Later, bolder spirits, by ingenious if not 
logical arguments, traced the redmen to such 
sources as Wales, China, Greece, and Eome. 

Then came Haeckel, with the sunken continent 
of Lemuria, and Donnelly, with his Atlantean em- 
pire, each contending that the Indian came by way 
of the Pacific or the Atlantic to North America. 
But one scientific position remained, and that was 
occupied by Brinton, by Dorman, by Baldwin, by 
Abbott, and by Reville, who held that American 
culture was home-bred — that it was wholly in- 



ONY AND AS A STATE _56 

digenous — a view constantly gaining adlierents. 
This view, by the way, does not necessitate the 
origin of man on the American continent, for prior 
to race differentiation he might readily have 
reached its shores. Certainly his language was 
developed here, and this significant fact points to 
the arrival of an almost speechless man to our 
shores, when climate and land configuration were 
different from what they now are. 

From a mass of contradictory testimony and 
conclusions one fact remains undisputed. The ar- 
rival of the Dutch on the banks of the Hudson and 
the Swedes on the Delaware brought into histor- 
ical prominence a nation of the great Algonkin 
family, whose branches reached from the frozen 
shores of Hudson Bay to the beaches of the Gulf 
of Mexico, and who occupied most of the territory 
of the present United States east of the Rocky 
Mountains. This nation, whose limitations were 
broadly marked by the boundaries of the State of 
New Jersey, was known as the Delaware or Lennl- 
Lenape, the latter name being variously spelled, 
but which has been translated " Our Men " or 
the " Original " or " Pure " Indian. The Lenni- 
Lenap^, moved by human wants and needs, lived 
along the river valleys, being more numerous in 
the southern and central than in the northern 
parts of New Jersey. The total number in the 



INDIAN CEREMONIAL STONK. 



56 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




entire State probably never exceeded one thou- 
sand. 

From divergent sources, stripped of prejudice, 
favorable or adverse, contemporary descriptions 
indicate that the Lenni-Lenap^ were of moderate 
stature, properly shaped, dark-eyed, black-haired, 
wearing the too familiar scalp-lock, their bodies 
usually annointed with animal oils or stained, 
symbolically, with vegetable or mineral dyes. 
Among the men there were many who approached 
physical perfection, the women, in youth, being 
statuesque rather than beautiful. Once a maid 
became a matron, say at the age of fifteen, hard 
work, exposure, and insufScient food soon de- 
stroyed her attractiveness. At best the savage 
type manifested itself, and few were the white 
men who took Indian girls to wife. 

The Lenni-Lenap^ lived in villages, but the wig- 
wam sites were frequently changed, the inhabit- 
ants seeking new hunting and fishing grounds. 
Differing from the Indians of Central New York, 
there were no community houses. Each Lenni- 
Lenap^ family occupied its own home. The wig- 
wams, being variously constructed, bore but little 
:!^esemblance to the elaborate and often artistically 

nceived structures so familiar in conventional 

^'i^istorical paintings. William Penn, writing from 

Philadelphia in 1683, speaks of the houses of the 

Indians as being fashioned like English barns, and 




ONY AND AS A STATE 57 

made of mats or tree bark. Pastorius, in his de- 
scription of Pennsylvania, written about the time 
of Penn's letter, says that young trees were bent 
to a common center, and a shelter formed by inter- 
laced branches which were covered with bark. 
Other writers allude to the circular wattled hut, 
thatched and lined with grasses or with leaves of 
the native maize. 

But the interior of these houses were usually in- 
describably dirty. Little or no attention was paid 
to the most elementary laws of sanitation. The 
refuse of cooking, the litter of domesticated 
animals, waste of all kinds lay upon the dirt floor 
or without the wigwam entrance. A column of 
smoke from a smudge fire sought any exit. Yet 
in the midst of squalor the Lenni-Lenap^ exer- 
cised that one trait which gained for him the 
praise of Europeans — an unselfish hospitality. It 
was the charity that covered the multitude of his 
sins. Whatever the Lenni-Lenap^ may have been, 
or to what depths of degradation he may have 
plunged after association with dominant white 
races, his open-handedness never forsook him. To 
the last day in New Jersey the mat, the seat of 
honor in the center of the wigwam, was reserved 
for the welcomed guest. His it was to partake of 
the ach-poan or boiled crushed maize, or the boiled 
corn and beans, later known to the Europeans as 
" succotash," of roasted nuts, or of the half -cooked V% ^sf?^«^ 




58 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

flesh of bear, deer, opossum, or other smaller ani- 
mals. Before the traveller were placed a variety 
of herbs, roots, and berries, or, if upon the 
" shore," there were wild fowl, crabs, oysters, and 
clams, the latter either fresh or dried. The sole 
stimulant of the Lenni-Lenap^, until the arrival of 
the Europeans, was tobacco. Vinous, malt, and 
spirituous liquors were unknown until intro- 
duced by the whites. 

Although in a transition period between the 
hunter and the agricultural stages of development, 
the Lenni-Lenap6 had made progress in the use- 
ful as Avell as in the ornamental arts. From the 
animals they secured hides which they success- 
fully tanned and adorned with emblems and ideo- 
graphic representations of tribal history. Large 
bones were used to scratch the earth's surface 
preparatory to planting crops; small bones were 
employed as needles, fish hooks, and as ornaments. 
Various stones, unfashioned or fashioned, became 
knives, chisels, net sinkers, pestles, drills, mor- 
tars, fish spears, arrowheads, and other imple- 
ments necessary in a community in constant war- 
fare against nature and in occasional contest 
against other tribes. Flint, quartz, granite, slate, 
chard, and soap-stone were employed. Clays in 
the rough or mixed with mica were used in the 
making of bowls, jars, dishes, both domestic and 
ceremonial. This pottery was sun-baked and 



ONY AND AS A STATE 59 

marked, conventionally, by hand. " Green " clay, 
when fashioned, was sometimes wrapped in a 
cover of grass or coarse cloth that the mark of 
the fibre should be pressed into the outer surface 
of the object as well as to hold the clay firm. 

The Lenni-Lenap^ had the vanity of dress char- 
acteristic of uncivilized man. Beads of wampum, 
from the white and black portions of shells, not- 
ably the clam, were worn upon the arms and legs. 
With these were displayed pieces of native cop- 
per brought from the hills of Essex or the valley 
of the Earitan, uncut semi-precious gems from 
the mountains of Sussex County, rose quartz, crys- 
tals, and bits of micaceous schist. In their hair 
were stuck bright colored feathers, and over their 
bodies were thrown skins and dyed cloth. 

The family relation among the Lenni-Lenape 
gave much offense to the early missionaries. A 
form of marriage was recognized, with the usual 
primitive customs of bridal gifts and wedding 
feasts. But upon the testimony of such observers 
as Haskill and Heckewelder it may be said that 
these " marriages " were usually based upon con- 
venience or inclination, and, consequently, were 
seldom lasting. Separations were naturally com- 
mon, the children of such unions becoming the 
property of the mother. Polygamy was permitted, 
but owing to the trouble and annoyance of a 
plurality of women was but little practiced. 



Polished Fli'sher. Hevti-Lunar Knifv 

INDIAN SPECIMENS. 



60 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

In their education the boys were trained in all 
physical exercises, with ultra-Spartan severity. 
This process was discontinued when the lad 
reached the age of sixteen or eighteen, when, with 
due ceremonies, he was '^ initiated " into the tribe. 
Thence his life became most strenuous when at 
the chase or at war; of contemplation and serious- 
ness when in council; or of laughter, song, and 
gambling when resting in his wigwam. For the 
women it was a miserable existence of toil, plant- 
ing and gathering crops, and carrying burdens, to 
the end, says an observing historian, that wives 
might be true servants of their husbands. 

The administration of justice among the Lenni- 
Lenap^ was as simple as it was effective. Through- 
out their system — if such it may be called — there 
was the trail of blood and of retaliation. The 
principle underlying the lex talionis was supreme. 
The thief was required to restore stolen property, 
and the relatives of a murdered man slew the 
murderer. Yet, as in some modern legislation, 
there was also the idea of pecuniary compensation 
for an injury, and a sufficiency of personal prop- 
erty surrendered to the wronged individual satis- 
fied the ends of savage justice. As private owner- 
ship of property was unknown, the refinements 
and technicalities of European laws were no part 
of tribal regulations. 

The close relationship between a religious cult 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



61 



and the practice of the healing art of any primi- 
tive people brings into prominence the one great 
figure of Indian life — the so-called " medicine 
man." Both priest and physician, both sorcerer 
and compounder of herbs, both " he who talks 
with spirits " and surgeon, the " medicine man " /J 
of the Lenni-Lenap6 embraced in himself elements 
of charlatanism, of mysticism, of native shrewd- 
ness and debased superstition, of careful obser- 
vation of the properties of roots and herbs, and 
of the principles of elementary surgery. At once 
revered and hated, he was the spectacular figure 
when, in the wigwam of sickness or death, he 
exorcised evil spirits by incantations, or at the 
council of war read signs in the clouds, in the pass- 
ing wind, or upon the surface of the stream. His 
it was to drive away death and to bring peace to 
the tribe, and to prepare the warrior's journey 
adown the shining path of the Milky Way that 
led to the blessed land beyond. 

As to a belief in a future state, it is beyond ques- 
tion that the Lenni-Lenap^ had a concept of life 
after death with a somewhat mercantile system of 
rewards and punishments. It is quite unneces- 
sary to say that this after-death existence was in 
an indefinite region where physical wants and 
needs were immediately gratified. It was with 
difficulty that the Indian grasped the theological 
idea of Heaven, or in fact any essential element of 




62 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



the Christian religion. To them a Christ was well 
nigh impossible, a redemption of the human race 
unnecessary. Lacking the mental capacity to un- 
derstand so altruistic a faith, they were the more 
confused by the contentions of religious associa- 
tions and the apparent complicated machinery 
necessary to sustain them. For this reason, possi- 
bly, the Society of Friends, with their lack of out- 
ward formalism in establishing and maintaining 
meeting houses, and the evident spirit of justice 
in their dealings with the Indians, made more 
permanent progress with the Lenni-Lenap^ than 
other denominations. But even such progress was 
largely of a negative character and lacked true 
permanency. 

It is known that the Indian venerated fire and 



light. 



Isolated instances of orientation, such as 



interments in certain burial mounds and in the 
construction of their wigwams, seem to prove the 
assertion. There was a recognition of a supreme 
spirit, a Manito or mysterious influence, in gen- 
eral, for good or evil, manifesting itself through 
a thousand instrumentalities. 

In government both peace and war chiefs ruled 
the councils of the Lenni-Lenap^, in which the 
" initiated " men as well as women of ability took 
part. The nation, as such, was divided by the 
older writers into three sub-tribes or gentes, a 



designation of which the absolute historical cor- 





K 




INDIAN TOTKMIC SIGNATURES. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



63 



rectness has yet to be proved. In the upper val- 
ley of the Delaware were the " Minsi," the Moun- 
taineers, whose totem was the wolf. These were 
the real warriors of the Lenni-Lenap^, and were 
the most adverse to missionary influence. Further 
south were the " Unami," People down the River, 
whose totem, the tortoise, suggested that as it was 
the progenitor of mankind and bore the world 
upon its back, so were they entitled to lead in 
governmental affairs. In the region from the 
Rancocas to Cape May were the " Unalachtigo," 
People who live near the Ocean. Skilled in fish- 
ing, it was they who spoke with softness the ag- 
glutinative language of the Lenni-Lenapd; it was 
they who were gentler than the more northern 
Minsi, and who, from their seldom fighting, gained 
for the Lenni-Lenap^ the contemptuous phrase 
" Women," which the Six Nations of New York 
hurled in the teeth of the New Jersey Indian. 

In their relation to the white settlers the In- 
dians occupied an uncertain position. Their legal 
status was determined, usually, at the whim of the 
colonial Legislature — at one time treated as 
equals, at another as menials. Generally speak- 
ing, the Dutch and Swedes were kindly disposed 
toward the redmen, although there was constantly 
the cloud of racial jealousy overshadowing all 
transactions. The missionary efforts of the Hol- 
landers and Scandinavians bore little fruit. To 














64 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

the Dutch, Indian trade in peltries and furs was 
of such importance that evangelization was an 
incident in their association with the Lenni- 
Lenap^. The Swedes were weak upon the banks 
of the Delaware, and missionary efforts were di- 
rected toward saving the colonists rather than 
caring for the spiritual welfare of the savages. 

Whatever may have been the outcome of efforts 
to Christianize the Indian on the part of the Eng- 
lish, the declarations of good intent under the 
early proprietary government had the ring of hon- 
esty of purpose. In the instructions sent to Gov- 
ernor Philip Carteret, in 1664, His Excellency was 
advised to " treat them with all Humanity and 
Kindness and not in any wise greive or oppress 
them; but endeavoring, by Christian Carriage, to 
manifest Piety, Justice, and Charity and in your 
Conversation with them, the manifestation where- 
of will prove Beneficial to the Planters and like- 
wise advantageous to the Propagation of the Gos- 
pel." 

In 1702, upon the surrender of the proprietary 
government to the crown, Governor Cornbury was 
instructed to secure the passage of a law estab- 
lishing the death penalty for those who wilfully 
killed Indians or negroes, and proper punishment 
dealt out to those who maimed or abused them. 
In conjunction with the Legislature the governor 
was directed to inquire as to the best method of 



ONY AND AS A STATE 65 

converting negroes and Indians, and to use his en- 
deavors to encourage the Indians to trade with 
England, a smug soul saving policy, with a com- 
mercial motive quite characteristic of the age. 
This period from 1664 to 1702, a quarter of a cen- 
tury of colonization, embraces the era when the 
intercourse between the Europeans and the In- 
dians was most marked. It was the time of set- 
tlement when the " Indian problem '' had not been 
solved, when men still thought the South Sea lay 
just beyond the Alleghenies, and when fancy peo- 
pled unknown territory to the west with untold 
numbers of warlike savages. 

Mutual fear and distrust filled the minds of the 
colonists. The Lenni-Lenap^ and whites each 
cried " Peace," and called one another " Friend " 
and "Brother"; there was no real peace, nor 
friendship, nor fraternal feeling. Repressive leg- 
islation, having as its mainspring of action an 
undisguised suspicion, together wth slavery based 
upon economic and police considerations, re- 
strained the personal liberty of the Indian. 

Fortunately, in New Jersey, the situation never 
became acute, except a sporadic contest between 
the Dutch and Indians before the English con- 
quest, and the Indian massacres in Sussex County 
during the French and Indian War. Nevertheless 
no real sympathy existed between the dominant 
and inferior peoples. Throughout the colonial 



A iALlS.VnKI) 



66 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



history of the State there were few marriages of 
white men and Indian women, and those con- 
tracted were looked upon in the light of mis- 
cegenations. For this reason unions between 
negroes and Indians were common — so frequent, 
indeed, as to have left permanent impress upon 
many families of negroes of the present day. 

The governmental history of New Jersey in the 
matter of clearing land titles from all traces of 
Indian ownership is creditable. Following the 
precedents of the Dutch and Swedes, the proprie- 
tors of New Jersey used every method to extin- 
guish native title. In Berkeley's and Carteret's 
Directions dated December 7, 1672, it was directed 
that the governor and council purchase all In- 
dian lands in the name of the proprietors. Sub- 
sequent purchasers were directed to reimburse the 
proprietors and to pay necessary charges. After 
the establishment of East Jersey's government an 
act was passed, in 1682, providing that no one 
should purchase Indian land without a warrant 
from the governor or his deputy. 

In West Jersey, in the first chapter of that re- 
markable document, the " Concessions and Agree- 
ments," it was directed in 1676 that before the 
lands were surveyed the commissioners were to 
meet the natives and agree upon the price of land. 
A public register was also to be kept, while later 
legislation declared that titles founded on pur- 



-^?^i^^ 





•liaf.iluo^ i 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



67 



chases not in accordance with this method were 
null and void. Offenders were fined and declared 
to be enemies of the province. Again in 1703 
similar provisions were enacted, and unlicensed or 
unwarranted vendees of Indian land were directed 
to secure confirmation of title. 

Resultant from such regulations nearly if not 
all the Indian title to New Jersey was extin- 
guished before the Revolution. The deeds given 
by the Indians were carelessly drawn as to de- 
scriptions and boundaries, and were signed by 
chiefs who were content with insignificant and in- 
sufficient consideration, yet there appears a gener- 
al desire to secure valid title. In a few cases 
Indian squaws signed, with their husbands, as 
squaw sachems — an artificial proceeding when it 
is remembered that none of the Lenni-Lenape, 
when the Europeans came to New Jersey, had the 
slightest conception of the individual ownership 
of property, and that the whole plan of extin- 
guishment of Indian title was transported bodily 
from European administrative methods. 

The social relation of the Indian and the white 
settlers presents a somewhat complex problem. 
Enslaved by both Swedes and Dutch, the English 
also fastened the shackles of bondage upon the na- 
tives. At the same time, after the English con- 
quest of 1664, the sachemic and tribal customs 
of the Lenni-Lenap6 were recognized by law. Both 




HOWS AND ARROWS. 



68 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




in East and West Jersey Indian treaty councils 
were held, yet the same Legislatures that sent 
representatives to confer with Indian tribes recog- 
nized slavery and provided laws to regulate In- 
dians in bondage. This was the inconsistency 
arising from conditions surrounding men in a new 
state of society, who, staking their all in a dis- 
tant land, mingled diplomacy with physical force 
and recognition of natural rights with fear of a 
native population. 

At no time was the Indian incorporated into the 
whites' political system. He was regarded as be- 
longing to a different nation — the system which 
has been followed by the United States. The 
Fundamental Laws of West Jersey recog- 
nized, however, a mixed jury of Indians and 
white men, who were empowered to try cases 
where white men injured Indians, and further pro- 
vided that if Indians wronged the inhabitants the 
authorities were directed to notify the sachems 
according to law and equity. 
^t was in the matter of economic relations that 
he true state of the relationship between the In- 
dian and the whites becomes apparent. The ex- 
tinguishment of land titles for trifling considera- 
tions, the earnest pleas that the governors have 
ender consideration for the spiritual welfare of 

e redman, and the high-sounding phrases of 
" law and equity " were inexpensive methods of 





yj ^vH u' 



ONY AND AS A STATE 69 

satisfying colonial consciences. But in the mat- 
ter of industrial life the situation presented new 
phases. A mere glance at contemporary legisla- 
tion shows that, in addition to slavery, a system- 
atic attempt was made to crush out industrial 
life among the Indians. In 1668 the Legislature of 
East Jersey provided that no person should buy 
from the Lenni-Lenape any swine, neat cattle, or 
horses' skins or flesh, dead or alive, under a pen- 
alty of £10. In 1679 all persons from without the 
province were prohibited from treating or trading 
with the Indians under a severe penalty. In West 
Jersey there was no restrictive legislation, yet 
there was little effort to stimulate industrial prog- 
ress among the Indians, who were largely in a con- 
dition of servitude. 

Weak in numbers, the object of suspicion and 
hatred, forced to associate with slaves if not them- 
selves in bondage, unable to comprehend the com- 
plexities of European civilization, the Indians fell 
an easy prey to the excessive use of alcoholic 
stimulants. This, in connection with smallpox 
and other loathsome diseases, decimated the In- 
dian population of New Jersey. The sale of liquor 
became a crying evil in both East and West Jer- 
sey. Fines and lashings were imposed upon of- 
fenders in a long series of acts passed by the Leg- 
islatures of both provinces, but to no avail. Idle- 
ness followed excessive drinking, and crime sue- 



70 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

ceeded debauchery. The harvest was gathered 
between 1700 and 1750, when the records of the 
New Jersey Supreme Court contain many indict- 
ments for larceny, arson, rape, and murder com- 
mitted by Indians and negroes having Indian 
blood in their veins. 

Missionaries led by Brainerd, philanthropists 
moved by the appeals of Woolman, urged reform, 
but to no permanent end. This condition of af- 
fairs, frequently discussed in meetings of Assem- 
bly and in Council, interest being stimulated by 
the terror caused by the massacres in Pennsyl- 
vania during the French and Indian War, led to 
a final disposition of the matter. 

As an act of charity and as a matter of protec- 
tion, the first Indian reservation ever established, 
as, such, within the limits of the United States, 
was located, in 1758, in Edgepelick or Brotherton, 
a town now known as Indian Mills. There, amid 
the " Pines " of Burlington County, the Indians 
of New Jersey, who largely resided south of the 
Raritan, were settled upon three thousand acres 
of land, where the descendants of the two hundred 
beneficiaries remained until 1802. Thence the 
Lenni-Lenap6 removed to New York State, join- 
ing the Mohegans, later to Green Bay, Wisconsin, 
and ultimately to Indian Territory. The final 
act in the drama was played in 1832, when upon 
the solicitation of the Indians the Legislature of 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



71 



tlie State of New Jersey appropriated two thou- 
sand dollars to extinguish all the right, title, and 
interest which the Lenni-Lenap^ held or might 
have held against the colony or State. 

Except in the retention of place names, cor- 
rupted by long usage, a varying and uncertain 
strain of blood in a few families, half forgotten 
village sites and graves, a few musty deeds, and 
scattered collections of stone, bone, and shell- 
work, no trace of the Lenni-Lenap^ remains in 
New Jersey. The Indian of New Jersey left but 
little impress upon State life, not sufficient, in- 
deed, to create in the mind of the student or reader 
a more than sentimental interest, yet an interest 
which is apparently perennial, and which entitles 
the Lenni-Lenap^ to a permanent place in State 
history. 




A BATTLK WITH THE INDIANS. 



CHAPTER III 

The Stkange Story of New Albion 



y\ ^ MONG the romances of colonial his- 

/ ^k tory stands the untimely but none 

/ ^k the less interesting attempt of a 

A ^J^ brave adventurer in his effort to 
plant a colony in New Jersey and 
adjacent territory. In 1632 there lived in Ireland 
a Roman Catholic member of an ancient Saxon 
family, Sir Edmund Plowden, who, in company 
with eight associates, petitioned King Charles I 
for a grant of land, " Manitie or Long Isle," and 
" thirty miles square of the coast next adjoining, 
to be erected into a County Palatine called 
Syon," to be held of the King without appeal or 
subjection to the governor or company of Vir- 
ginia. 

This prayer not receiving royal approval, it was 
soon renewed, the later petition designating Long 
Island as " Isle Plowden " and the county palatine 
" New Albion," " with forty leagues square of 
the adjoining continent," Plowden and his asso- 
ciates agreeing to " settle five hundred inhabit- 
ants for the planting and civilizing thereof." 
Upon this prayer a patent was granted, appoint- 
ing Sir Edmund Plowden as first governor over a 
tract of land embracing New Jersey, Delaware 
Maryland, and Pennsylvania as well as Long ts^ 
land. This was in the face of the Baltimore grant 
of Maryland, bestowed two years previously, and 
under a charter of similar import. 



Charlea I, />. Nov. 19, IGOO; Mcciided the 
throae March 37, 1625, auoceeding hu father, 
Jkmet I; executed Jan. 3i). 1649. 




CHARLES I. 



76 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




Sudden changes came among the patentees. In 
1634, owing to deaths and abandonment of claims, 
the title of certain of the survivors vested 
in Francis, George, and Thomas Plowden, sons of 
Sir Edmund. A lease under the charter was im- 
mediately made. Nearly ten thousand acres at 
Watsessett, presumably near Salem City, were 
thus transferred to Sir Thomas Danby, with " full 
liberty and jurisdiction of a court baron and court 
leet " for the " Town and Manor of Danby Fort,'^ 
with the provision that one hundred resident 
planters be settled, excluding those who did not 
believe or profess the " three Christian Creeds, 
commonly called the Apostolical, Athanasian, and 
Nicene." 

In the meantime there had sailed from Fal- 
mouth, England, in the early summer of 1634, one 
Captain Thomas Yong and his nephew and lieu- 
tenant, Robert Evelin, who held commission to 
discover parts of America not " actually in the 
ristlan Prince." One part of 



their plan was aT search for the " Mediterranean 
Sea," by which the mythical Chl^^assaga might 
be found. ^'' , rs:^ 

-^ ^Tio-^hls end, during the month of A*iigust^"tong 
and Evelin explored the Delaware River, which 
they named Charles, but were stopped by the 
rocks at Trenton Falls. Evelin went down the 
river and later explored the coast from Cape May 



MANHATTAN ISLAND IN THE BIXTEKNTH CENTURY. 




ONY AND AS A STATE 77 

to Manhattan Island, making a further abortive 
attempt to pass the rocks. Until 1641 the two 
adventurers remained in the valley of the Dela- 
ware, where from time to time wonderful stories 
of the beauty and fertility of New Jersey were sent 
to England. 

According to the late Gregory B. Keen, the 
modern historiographer of this strange expedi- 
tion, the Earl Palatine personally came to his vast 
domain, and in 1642 sailed up the Delaware River. 
It is said that the officers of the New Haven colo- 
nists at Salem swore obedience to him as governor. 
Misfortune soon fell upon Plowden. Spending 
much of his time in Virginia, he apparently lost 
his estate as w'ell as the people who came with 
him. In 1643, through treachery of a crew of a 
barque in which he was a passenger, he was ma- 
rooned on Smith's Island, in company with tw^o 
young retainers. They were later rescued by an 
English sloop. By a strange coincidence both the 
barque and the sloop appeared in Delaware Bay 
and fell under the custody of Governor John 
Printz, of New Sweden, who returned the barque 
to the Lord Palatine and permitted the sloop to 
go her way. 

In spite of free commissions to trade in the Dela- 
ware, issued by Plowden, the Swedish authorities 
firmly refused to permit any English ships free 
passage through the Delaware. Being thus 



78 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

thwarted by Printz, Plowden went to New York, 
and to Kieft and Stuyvesant presented his claim 
of title to lands west of the Hudson River. By way 
of Boston, in 1648, Plowden returned to England. 

The years 1648-49 were aj)parently weighty with 
matters of import to the Earl Palatine, of New 
Albion. In December, 1648, there appeared 
Beauchamp Plantagenet's " A Description of the 
Province of New Albion. And a Direction for Ad- 
venturers with small stock to get two for one and 
good land freely: And for Gentlemen and all 
Servants, Labourers and Artificers to live plenti- 
fully," dedicated " To the Right Honorable and 
mighty Lord Edmund, by Divine Providence, Lord 
Proprietor, Earl Palatine, Governour and Cap- 
tain Generall of the Province of New Albion," and 
to the Right Honorable the Lord Vicount Monson 
of Castlemaine, the Lord Sherard, Baron of Lei- 
trim, and " to all other the Vicounts, Barons, 
Baronets, Knights, Gentlemen, Merchants, Ad- 
venturers, and Planters of the hopefull Company 
of New Albion, in all 44 undertakers and Sub- 
scribers, bound by Indenture to bring and set- 
tle 3000 able trained men in our said several! 
Plantations in the said Province." 

With all its hopefulness and grandiloquent ab- 
surdities the " Description " contains what was de- 
signed to be the " Order Medall and Riban of the 
Albion Knights of the Conversion of 23 Kings, 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



79 



their support." The medal, according to Wind- 
sor and Mickle, bears upon its face a coro- 
neted eflfigy of Sir Edmund Plowden, surrounded 
by the legend •' Edmundus, Comes. Palatinus. et 
Guber. N. Albion." Upon the reverse two coats 
of arms are impaled. The dexter displays those 
of New Albion, an open Gospel, surmounted by a 
hand dexter, issuing from the parti line grasping 
a sword erect, surmounted by a crown. The sinis- 
ter are those of Plowden, a fesse dancett^e, with 
two fleurs de lis on the upper points. The support- 
ers are two bucks rampant gorged with crowns — 
the whole surmounted by the coronet of the Earl 
Palatine, encircled with the motto : " Sic Suos 
Virtus Beat." The order consists of this achieve- 
ment encircled by twenty-two heads, couped and 
crowned, held up by a crowned savage kneeling. 
This motto surrounds the legend : " Docebo iniquos 
bias tuas et impii ad te convertentur." 

The institution of such heraldic devices was 
in accord with the spirit of the age, but even the 
romanticism of the " Order Medall and Riban of 
the Albion Knights " was scarcely exceeded by a 
frame of government devised for the few adven- 
turers. A lord " head governor," a deputy gov- 
ernor, " Secretary of Estate," twelve members of 
Council, of the latter all or five to be a court of 
chancery, were suggested. In addition there were 
to be selected thirty members of a lower house. 




MKDAI <>1 I 



80 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

chosen " at a free election and day prefixed." 
The consent of the lord head governor and up- 
per and lower houses was required to all legisla- 
tion. Eliminating the somewhat quixotic char- 
acter of this plan, the " Description " breathes the 
spirit of religious toleration in the sentence : " For 
this argument or perswasion of Religion Ceremo- 
nies or Church-Discipline should be acted in 
mildnesse, love, and charity and gentle language, 
not to disturb the peace or quietness of the In- 
habitants but therein to obey the Civill Magis- 
trate." 

It is in its portrayal of the advantages of New 
Jersey as a home for emigrants that the " Descrip- 
tion " becomes vivid and intense. New Albion 
was likened unto Lombardy, with " a rich fat soil, 
plain and having 34 rivers on the main land, 17 
great Isles, and partaketh of the healthiest aire 
and most excellent commodities of Europe." All 
kinds of woods were to be found in profusion, fish, 
fowl, corn, " silkgras," salt, good mines, and dyers' 
ware, " 5 sorts of deer, buffes and huge elks to 
plow and work, all bringing 3 young at once." In 
the uplands were " hogges and turkeys 500 in a 
flock, and having near the colony of Manteses 
400.000 acres of plain mead land and meer levell 
to be flowed and fludded by that river for corn, 
rice, rapes, flax and hemp." 

Master Evelin, in his letter to " Madam " Plow- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 81 

den, extols the fertility of this new-found land. 
" I saw there/' says the entertaining, if not over 
careful, chronicler, " an infinite quantity of bus- 
tards, swans, geese and fowl," with turkeys, one 
of which weighed forty-six pounds. Whales and 
grampus swim the seas, while on the land are 
" cedars, cypresse, sassafras, ♦ * * pine ap- 
ples, and the dainty parsemenas." Throughout 
New Albion were seats of Indian kings, that near 
Trenton being Kildorpy, " neer 200 miles up from 
the ocean, it hath clear fields to plant and sow and 
neer it is sweet large meads of clover or hony- 
suckle * * * A ship of 140 tuns may come up 
to these fals which is the best seat for health, and 
a trading house to be built on the rocks and ten 
leagues higher up are lead mines in stony hills." 

Even more curious is the description of Mount 
Plowden, " the seat of the Kariton King, ♦ ♦ ♦ 
twenty miles from Sandhay sea and ninety from 
the ocean, next to Amara hill, the retired para- 
dise of the children of the Ethiopian Emperour, a 
wonder, for it is a square rock, two miles com- 
passe, 150 foot high, a wall like precipice, a strait 
entrance easily made invincible, where he keeps 
two hundred for his guard, and under it is a flat 
valley all ready to plant and sow." 

In the " Description " are mentioned certain 
native tribes, the locations whereof are but ill de- 
fined, and the nomenclature probably fanciful. 



82 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




RELICS OF THE VAI.ATIXES. 



Thus between Cape May and Trenton, along Dela- 
ware Bay and River, were the Kechemeches above 
Cape May Point, the Manteses, who were prob- 
ably in Salem County, the Sikonesses, Asomoches, 
Eriwonecks, Ramcocks, Axions, and Mosilians. 

In spite of the heroic efforts made to attract set- 
tlers by means of such enticing literature emigra- 
tion steadily refused to be led to the Promised 
Land of New Albion. Preparations were made to 
send about one hundred and fifty individuals to 
the Delaware Valley in 1650, but no proof exists 
that the adventurers ever reached America, much 
less sailed from England. 

The causes of the failure of the expedition can- 
not be positively asserted. Every attempt to base 
the government of an American colony upon insti- 
tutions whose outward forms were chivalric failed, 
but the probable reason for lack of success may be 
found in the political excitements of the day, and 
that Maryland already offered an asylum for Ro- 
man Catholics. Furthermore, Sir Edmund had 
domestic difficulties. His eldest son, Francis, in 
the will of the Earl Palatine, is accused of " sin- 
ister and undue practices," he having " damnified 
and injured " his father " these eighteene yeares." 
The wife of Sir Edmund is spoken of as a " muta- 
ble woman," " perverted " by Francis. To the 
second son and his eldest male heir, Thomas, was 
given the " planting, fortifying, peopling, and 



ONY AST) AS A STATE 83 

stocking " of New Albion, with special direction 
that under his care and custody schools and 
churches be built, and that an effort be made to 
convert the Indian to Christianity. 

Sir Edmund died in 1659 and the son Thomas in 
169S, his heir being Francis Plowden. In the 
meantime, according to the will of Thomas, it ap- 
pears that Andrew Wall, his son-in-law, of Lud- 
shott, England, had wrongfully detained the pat- 
ent during the space of several years. 

Even before the death of Sir Edmund the title 
of Xew Albion became hazy. In 1654, according 
to Lindstrom, Commandant Lloyd, of Virginia, 
urged the validity of the Plowden title in a con- 
versation had with ihe Swedes concerning the 
jurisdiction of the Delaware Eiver. In 1659 Philip 
Calvert, of Maryland, stated that Plowden never 
had title from the King, but had obtained his 
patent from the viceroy of Ireland, and it was 
consequently of no value. 

It is further claimed that Thomas and George 
Plowden, traditional grandsons of the Earl Pala- 
tine, came to Maryland, where they resided in 
16S4:, for the ptirpose of asserting claims to New 
Albion. From this date until the outbreak of the 
American Revolution little was heard of the Plow- 
den claim. Interest was revived when it was 
known that a certain Charles Varlo, an English- 
man, had purchased one-third part of the charter. 



84 NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 

In 1784 Varlo with his family came to America, 
where, as he says, he was " invested with the 
proper power as Governor to the Province, 
* * * not doubting the enjoyment of his prop- 
erty." He travelled through Long Island, New Jer- 
sey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, where 
he distributed a pamphlet giving documentary 
evidence of his claim to title, as well as the con- 
ditions for letting or selling farms of eight hundred 
to four thousand acres each in Long Island. Ac- 
cording to this pamphlet Varlo claimed from one 
hundred and twenty miles westward of Cape May 
to a certain rivulet there arising from a spring of 
Lord Baltimore's in Maryland, thence south 
(north?) by a right line 120 miles, thence 
east by a right line 120 miles to the River 
and Point of Reacher Cod, and descends to 
a Savannah or Meadow, " turning and in- 
cluding the Top of Sandy Hook," thence to 
Cape May by the eastern shore of New Jersey. 
To further substantiate this claim Varlo issued, in 
1785, " A Caution to the Good People of New Al- 
bion alias, corruptly called, at present, The Jer- 
seys," warning them against contracting for or 
buying any land in the province. Failing to ob- 
tain redress by a suit in chancery, Varlo returned 
to England, and with his departure from America 
the contentions of the Plowdens or of Varlo, and 
all others claiming under them, vanish forever. 



C H A P T E K IV 

New Swedjj-n 



L 



^ ■ HHE advent of Sweden in the valley of 
■ the Delaware was due to three 

causes: jealousy of the growth of 
Holland as a commercial world- 
power, desire to establish colonies 
as a manifestation of Swedish nationalization un- 
der the rule of Gustavus Adolphus, and the 
shrewdness of Willem Usselinx, merchant, of Ant- 
werp and founder of the Dutch West India Com- 
pany. In this movement colonization for the 
purpose of securing religious freedom played a dis- 
tinctively subsidiary part. 

In its incipiency the effort of Sweden to secure 
a foothold in the New World took the form 
of a commercial company. Its animating spirit 
was Usselinx, who, having disagreed in a matter 
of salary with his patrons in Holland, offered his 
services as colonizer to the Swedish crown. Stimu- 
lated by the prompt approval of Gustavus Adol- 
phus, who, in 1624, issued a manifest creating a 



general commercial society, the plan to extend the^^s^ 



sphere of Swedish influence caught the favor of„^„„ 
the people. The Australian Company, trading in *^ 
Africa, Asia, and America, appeared as a solicit- 
ant for subscriptions, and, having received a lib- 
eral charter, was heartily supported by royalty, 
the nobility, the army, the church, municipal offi- 
cers, and the commonalty. It was the voice of 
united Sweden calling for a share in the trade of 





'^>v<' 



^1 



'■i> 



88 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

the Indies, of China, of the Gold Coast, and of the 
far North, with the wide world, but half explored, 
from which to choose. Under such favorable au- 
spices the Australian Company commenced a ca- 
reer somewhat romantic and ultimately ill- 
starred. 

To further aid the project, the Ship Company, a 
corporation controlled by Swedish cities, was 
merged, in 1630, into the Australian Company, 
which gave to Sweden's cause of colonization and 
trade sixteen ships. The voyages of these vessels 
were generally disastrous, which, coupled with 
Sweden's wars on the continent and the death of 
Gustavus Adolphus on the battlefield of Ltitzen, 
cast a shadow upon the enterprise, so auspiciously 
inaugurated. But temporary embarrassment 
seemed to lend additional fire to the persistency 
of Usselinx. Shifting the base of operations from 
Sweden to the continent, unavailing appeals were 
made to men of wealth in Germany, France, Hanse 
Towns, States General, and even England. 

Failure to secure the support of these govern- 
ments gave a wide latitude for the injection of 
distinctively personal elements into the future his- 
tory of the Australian, or South, Company. There 
appear as actively interested in the project in 1635 
the Swedish Chancellor, Oxenstjerna; Samuel 
Blommaert, of the Dutch West India Company, 
who, in 1630, had secured a patronship, Swaanen- 



V ih/Z^^^^ftJU^. 



t^ioc 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



89 



dale, at Cape May; Peter Spiring, a confidential 
representative; and Peter Minuit, director-general 
of New Netherland from 1626 to 1632, the latter, 
like Usselinx, a disgruntled employee of the Hol- 
landers. After a period of delay this Swedish- 
Dutch company, a distinctively commercial enter- 
prise, sent out its first venture to America, in De- 
cember, 1637. 

It was not later than March, 1638, that Peter 
Minuit, with the man-of-war " Kalmar Nyckel " 
and the sloop " Gripen," entered Zuydt Riviere — 
the Delaware. Dr. Gregory B. Keen, in Wind- 
sor's " Narrative and Critical History of Amer- 
ica," quoting from the Swedish historian, Cam- 
panius, says that the founders of New Sweden 
landed at Murderkill Creek in the southern 
part of the State of Delaware. From the In- 
dians the Swedes purchased, in 1638, all the land 
lying between Bombay Hook and the Schuylkill, 
no western limits being assigned. 

At Wilmington Minuit immediately built Fort 
Christina. He sent the " Gripen " to Jamestown, 
which led the Virginians to protest to the Eng- 
lish crown that the Swedes were intruders. The 
" Gripen " then sailed up the river as far as Fort 
Nassau, a Dutch post at the mouth of Big Timber 
Creek, where the vessel was challenged and the 
actions of Minuit reported to the authoritie s in 
New Netherland and in Holland. CareFesfe or iii- 




FORT CITUISTINA AND VICINITY. 



90 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

different as to the claims of both nations, Minuit 
garrisoned and equipped his fort and accompanied 
the " Kalmar Nyckel " and the " Gripen " to the 
West Indies, where he lost his life in a storm. The 
vessels eventually returned to Sweden, in 1639, 
laden with tobacco and furs. Again, in 1640, 
the " Kalmar Njckel " voyaged to the New World 
under a Dutch crew, in that, in spite of the efforts 
of Queen Christina, few Swedes would either go 
as men before the mast or as colonists. Even the 
second governor of New Sweden was probably a 
Hollander. 

In 1640 the northern boundary of New Sweden, 
as the colony was now generally called, was ex- 
tended, by purchase from the Indians, to a point 
opposite Trenton, and thence, indefinitely, due 
west. Once again the gun of Fort Nassau was 
trained, without effect, upon the Swedish com- 
mander. The fertility of the lower Delaware Val- 
ley and the struggling for precedence between 
Sweden and Holland led the English to assert 
their claim to the river and the bay. In 1640 a cer- 
tain Captain Nathaniel Turner, agent of the New 
Haven Colony, is mentioned as a purchaser from 
the Lenni-Lenap^ of lands on the east and west 
banks of the stream, while in 1641 George Lam- 
berton also secured lands from the Indians. A part 
of the English purchase extending from Cape May 
to Raccoon Creek (Narraticons Kil) had been but 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



91 



recently transferred to the Swedish by the same 
Indian sachem who sold the land to the English. 
To confirm the title sixty individuals settled at 
Salem Creek (Varken's Kil), and on August 30, 
1641, the Salem " plantations " were declared to 
be a part and parcel of the New Haven govern- 
ment. 

In 1642 the English erected a trading house on 
the Schuylkill. Under the instigation of the 
Dutch, to which movement the Swedes lent ready 
aid, the English were driven from the vicinity of 
Philadelphia, and it is said the Salem community 
was broken up. Some of the settlers were sent 
to New Amsterdam and thence to New Haven, 
Lamberton was arrested, and in 1642, according to 
the testimony of Governor Winthrop, of Massa- 
chusetts, the New Haven colony was " dissolved " 
owing to summer " sickness and mortality." A 
truer reason may be found in the inability of the 
New Haven people to sustain themselves, in view 
of the distance from Connecticut, and the superior 
force of the Swedes and Dutch. 

While the English were asserting title to the 
Delaware a third expedition was in transit to the 
shores of that river. Receiving the support of 
the government, the Dutch interests were elimi- 
nated by purchase, and, with a large proportion of 
Finns, the " Kalmar Nyckel " and a companion 
ship, the " Charitas," in 1641, led the third ven- 




(MASSACHUSETTS. ) 



92 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

ture to America. An awakened interest in New 
Sweden led to the formation of a new corporation 
variously called the West India, American, or 
New Sweden Company, to which the South Com- 
pany, the crown, and leading merchants contribu- 
ted. 

The fourth expedition, in 1642, took a new gov- 
ernor, John Printz, the most conspicuous of all 
Sweden's governors in the New World. What the 
purposes of the crown were in the valley of the 
Delaware are best shown by his " Instructions," 
dated August 15, 1652, signed by the guardians 
of Queen Christina. The territory under his au- 
thority extended on the west side of the Dela- 
ware from Cape Henlopen to a point opposite 
Trenton, and on the New Jersey side of the river 
and bay from Cape May to Kaccoon Creek. Com- 
mercially, Governor Printz was directed to pre- 
serve the fur trade monopoly, to stimulate the 
cultivation of tobacco, to foster grazing, arbor- 
iculture, viniculture, silk and salt production, and 
fishing. To his care was left the maintenance of 
the Swedish Lutheran religion, the education of 
the youth, and the christianization of the Indians. 
With the Dutch at New Netherland and Port 
Nassau relations of an independent but friendly 
character were to be observed, but " force was to 
be repelled by force " should belligerent measures 
be necessarv. Governor Printz arrived in the 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



93 



Delaware in January, 1643, sailed up the river as 
far as Trenton, and erected a house (Printz hof) 
on Tinicum Island, midway between Chester and 
Philadelphia. Upon the New Jersey side of the 
river, betw^een Salem and Alloway's Creek, Fort 
Nya Elfsborg was constructed in 1643. Printz 
also took other means of strengthening his colony. 
In 1644 came the fifth expedition to New Sweden, 
bearing among other emigrants Johan Papegaja, 
who subsequently became lieutenant-governor of 
the colony and married Printz's daughter Arm- 
gott. 

Evil times now befell the colony of scarce two 
hundred souls. In 1645 the fort. New Gottenburg, 
on Tinicum Island, was destroyed by fire, while 
during the following year occurred an open rup- 
ture between the Dutch and the Swedes. First, 
permission to trade was refused by Printz to a 
Dutch sloop, the Hollanders were restrained from 
hunting for minerals in the vicinity of Trenton, 
and the arms of the Dutch West India Company 
were pulled down by Swedish oflftcials in the limits 
of Philadelphia. For a time the trouble was 
patched up, and in 1646 and 1647 the sixth and 
seventh expeditions reached the Delaware. 

Again the Dutch attempted to strengthen their 
position on the river. Doughty Peter Stuyvesant, 
succeeding Kieft at New Amsterdam, asserted the 
claims of Holland to the Delaware, which action 




FLAG OF THK WEST 
INDIA COMPANY. 



94 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




met with equal show of right on the part of Printz. 
Stuyvesant, among other matters, had granted to 
a Dutch colonist the privilege of settling near 
Mantua Creek, whereupon Printz demanded the 
allegiance of the settler, purchased from the 
Lenni-Lenape all lands between Raccoon and Man- 
tua Creeks, and endeavored to secure Indian title 
to soil around Fort Nassau. In this Printz was 
frustrated by the Dutch, who secured title around 
Fort Nassau in 1649. 

By this time the failure of a new expedition 
sent from Sweden, and the activity of the Dutch, 
made the situation of New Sweden more precari- 
ous. Needed articles of husbandry, ammunition 
and guns were required to prevent the encroach- 
ments of Holland. In May, 1651, an armed Dutch 
ship appeared off Cape May, and in June of that 
year Stuyvesant came with one hundred and 
twenty men over the wilderness of New Jersey 
from New Amsterdam and met a small naval force 
at Fort Nassau. He built Fort Casimir, near New 
^^astle, Delaware, razed Fort Nassau, and prac- 
ticably took command of the bay and river. 

From this date the fortunes of Sweden in the 
New World slowly waned. New Haven renewed 
its interest, the Dutch were continually aggressive, 
and finally, in August, 1655, the crisis came. 
Stuyvesant in command of a war vessel, with a 
galiot, flyboat, and two yachts reached the Dela- 






stuyvesant's pkar trkk 



ONY A^D AS A STATE 



95 



ware. Sailing northward, the Swedish com- 
mander, Captain Schulte, owing to desertions and 
recognizing the inadequacy of his force, surren- 
dered, and after further negotiations the territory 
of New Sweden passed under the domination of 
Holland, remaining under its jurisdiction until 
1664. A change of masters changed but little 
the character of the settlement, the alterations be- 
ing of a purely political character. 

So far as the limits of the State of New Jersey 
are concerned the political influence of New Swe- 
den was of a negative character. Few if any per- 
manent settlements were made during this period, 
the Swedes in West Jersey being descendants of 
those adventurers who settled in Delaware and 
Southeastern Pennsylvania. 

The town of Swedesboro is the most striking 
evidence of the occupancy of the Scandinavians. 
Upon a map made by Gregory B. Keen there are 
preserved some curious place names given by the 
small farmers and peltry traders to points in West 
Jersey. Some of these place names are of Indian 
derivation. Thus, Maurice River was known as the 
Assveticons, while Sepa Hackingh was immediate- 
ly south of Brid^ton. Alio way's Creek was 
known as Korten/JRevier ( Short Eiver), while the 
land between Alloway's and Salem Creeks was 
called Oitsessingh. Here stood Fort Nya Elfsborg 
(Elsingboro Point), while Salem was known as 



v^ 




0^;U'.,.^ 



STUYVESANT'S HOMK, «* THK WHITEHALL." 



96 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

Asamo Hackingh. Between Salem Creek and the 
Delaware was Obissquasoit. In Oldman's Creek 
the easy transformation from Alderman's Kil is 
seen. Narraticon (Raccoon), Mantees (Mantua), 
Rode Udden (Red Bank), and Timmer (Big Tim- 
ber) Creeks are easily recognizable. East of Big 
Timber Creek lay Arwames and Tekoke, while be- 
tween Big Timber and Cooper Creeks, the latter 
called Hjorte, lay Sassae Kon. Pensauken Creek 
was called Stmt's Creek, its headwaters rising in 
the regions of Sinsessingh and Poenpissingh. Ran- 
cocas is apparently of Swedish origin, while Bev- 
erly and its vicinity was known as Marachonsicka. 
Tinneconck Island, directly above Burlington 
City, retains its name, while in the vicinity of 
White Hill the Swedes claim to have found silver. 
This was probably mica, which led to a like error 
of the English settlers of Virginia, who mistook 
iron pyrites for gold. The meadows between Bor- 
dentown and Trenton were known as Alummingh, 
and Trenton Falls as the Falls of the Assunpink. 

Of these various places the Swedes were to be 
found nearest Tinicum Island and Wilmington. 
These points were Salem and the creeks of Cam- 
den and Gloucester Counties. Traders unques- 
tionably went to the sites of Burlington and Tren- 
ton, and possibly made settlements at both places. 

At best New Jersey, in the history of New 
Sweden, played a subordinate part. Few if any 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



97 



traces of occupancy remain, and except for the 
occasional visit of the hunter and trader no at- 
tempt was made to occupy the territory, much less 
to cultivate the soil, to establish a permanent gov- 
ernment, or to civilize the Lenni-Lenap^. But it 
fell to the lot of the Swedes to demonstrate the 
possibilities of the Delaware Valley as a place for 
permanent settlement, and to prove, by their own 
misfortunes, that no northwest passage lay be- 
tween the site of Trenton and China and that no 
winning of the wilderness could be accomplished 
except by unremitting toil and unity of action. 

The Swedish settlements on the east bank of the 
Delaware were too remote one from another, as 
well as from a common center, to geographically 
impress the later history of the State. The ef- 
fects of Swedish life and character appear in 
physical and mental constitutions of individuals 
rather than in any general political or social move- 
ments. From their incipiency the generous but 
Utopian projects of Gustavus Adolphus had been 
ill-starred. The varying fortunes of the Swedish 
crown early left its colony upon the Delaware to 
its own devices, or to be the prey in turn of semi- 
hostile Indians, of Holland, and of England. Be- 
neath the royal enthusiasm concerning the settle- 
ment, the earnestness of the clergy, the brave 
hopes of the emigrants, there was a vein of sad- 




v^ 



\-; 



/'''\ 



GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 



98 



NEW JERSEY AS A OOL 




SEAL OF NEW SWEDEN. 



nes», and over all hung the pall of ultimate de- 
feat. 

The closest ties bound the mother country and 
her colony — ties of language, of blood relation- 
ship, of religious faith; and while Sweden had her 
power the far cry of her little band over sea never 
fell upon neglectful ears. But when the meteoric 
light of the Caesar of the North was plunged into 
the gloom of war, internal strife, and dismember- 
ment of empire. New Sweden had none to succor 
and to save. Disheartened, indifferent either to 
their own future or the future of old Sweden, the 
colonists on the Delaware became worse than 
static. Even the clergy, who tried to rekindle the 
waning fires of patriotism and awaken the flame 
of industry, education, and love for their church, 
found their efforts but ill repaid. 

Small wonder was it that the Swedish settle- 
ments made so feeble a resistance to the Dutch 
in 1655, for a change of masters meant but little 
to colonists, whose past had been blasted by the 
failure of paternalism, whose present was but a 
political existence — almost a chimera, — and 
whose future was well nigh hopeless. 

The transition from Swedish to Dutch rule was 
so easily accomplished as to excite but little inter- 
est except to the nations concerned, and had no di- 
rect bearing of any moment upon European poli- 
tics. The outward form of the political institutions 



\ 



ONY AND AS A STATE 99 

of the Dutch and Swedes in America were suifi- 
ciently similar to occasion no need of drastic re- 
form, and Holland was entirely content to permit 
the Swedes to continue the establishment of the 
Lutheran faith. In fact the idea of the Dutch was 
not so much the gratification of lust for war as 
it was the control of the Delaware and the com- 
mercial subjugation of territory, which, from its 
natural fertility and its Indian trade, promised 
an increase in revenue and the economic advance- 
ment of Holland. True, both the Hudson and 
Delaware Valleys passed under the administra- 
tion of the Dutch, and Holland was the better en- 
abled to strike north at New England or south 
at Maryland and Virginia, or to protect herself 
in homogeneous territory in case of attack. But 
her American relations to England were of less 
importance to her than the development of agri- 
cultural and commercial enterprises upon the 
Delaware. This at once secured the Swedes, so 
long as they paid taxes and acknowledged the 
authority of the Dutch oflSicials, liberty of action. 
The Swedes in New Jersey early amalgamated 
with both the Dutch and the English, particularly 
with the latter. Unlike the Hollanders in East 
Jersey, who married and intermarried, preserving 
racial traits and language beyond the Kevolution- 
ary period, the Swede almost immediately merged 
into the dominant race. After 1725, in such church 



100 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

records as have been preserved, it is quite rare to 
find the union of Swedish men and women of the 
pure stock. While in 1700 there were many in 
West Jersey who spoke Swedish; by the middle of 
the century the tongue was almost forgotten; and 
by 1800, except for the retention of a few words, 
Swedish was a dead language upon the New Jer- 
sey shore of the Delaware. 

The decline of the mission churches in West 
Jersey, the shifting of the Swedes to the Society 
of Friends or to Episcopalianism, was the effect 
rather than a cause of their loss of nationality. 
With their language, their literature, and their 
church eradicated from West Jersey, and but 
weakly sustained in Delaware and Southeastern 
Pennsylvania, racial pride was scarce a name even 
among themselves. 

But the physical impress of the Scandinavian 
was more enduring, and remains to this day a 
fact as visibly evident as it is genealogically prov- 
able. In Salem City, in Swedesboro, and among 
old settled families in the Maurice River Valley 
the course of this blood has held its way for over 
two centuries as permanent as the Lenni-Lenap6 
strain of equal antiquity, if not always of equal 
value. 

Mentally, the Swedes gave to the English set- 
tlers additional strength. The range of this par- 
ticular influence was never broader than Burling- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 101 

ton on the north and Maurice River on the south, 
and was practically centered in Western Glouces- 
ter and Salem Counties. But from this section 
came men famous in colonial merchant marine, 
men who had to a large degree Swedish blood in 
their veins, and who went down to the sea in 
their ships, driven by impulses which sent their 
Viking ancestors into the unknown ocean from the 
cold shores of the old home under the midnight 
sun. Small wonder is it that the early vessel cap- 
tains of the Delaware were a hardy, honest race 
of men who commanded the respect of opulent 
Philadelphia merchants, and amassed for their 
patrons and themselves fortunes in adventures 
projected from Labrador to the Indies. 

In colonial politics Swedish names are of as in- 
frequent occurrence as those of the French Hugue- 
not of Monmouth. Neither, apparently, had polit- 
ical ambitions, or, if such were possessed, lacked 
the adaptability necessary to secure recognition. 
Fortunately both Swedes and French recognized 
the futility of the injection of racial characteris- 
tics into administrative affairs, and left to the 
English the management of their own province. 

Of all the settlements within the limits of the 
United States by nations other than England no 
one attempt possesses a more curious and less rec- 
ognized field for historical investigation than that 



of the Swedes upon the banks of the Delawaj^; "^ "^ 



vixiti^ 



CHAPTER V 

New Netherland 



IN COMMON with other maritime nations 
of Western Europe, the upbuilding of 
Spain, by reason of her West India trade, 
led Holland to seek in the New World 
equal if not greater commercial prestige. 
The cause was one that appealed to the Dutch. 
Hating Spain with deadly hatred, ambitious to 
test her influence as a world power, limitless in 
her resources, a proposition made by William 
Usselinx, an exiled Antwerp merchant, led, in 
1606, to the formation of a definite plan for a West 
India Company. The corporation was to have a 
life of thirty-six years, and to receive for a time 
the support of the United Provinces. Owing to 
jealousies of these provinces, the possibilities of 
the ships of the company preying upon Spanish 
commerce, and jeopardizing a possible peace with 
Spain, the idea was temporarily abandoned. 

The year 1609 is made memorable by the ap- 
pearance upon the shores of America of Henry 
Hudson, an English navigator in the employ of the 
East India Company, who, abandoning at sea his 
plan to find a northeast passage to India, pro- 
posed to seek at 40 N. latitude a northwest pas- 
sage. Failing to find an inlet to the Western 
Ocean at Newfoundland, Penobscot Bay, or Cape 
Cod, he sailed for a week in Delaware Bay and 
Kiver, and early in September, after landing upon 
Sandy Hook, took his yacht, " Half Moon," one 




SEAL, OF NEW NETHER- 
LAND. 



106 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




hundred and fifty miles toward the headwaters 
of the " Great North River of New Netherland." 
Upon his return to Europe the excitement caused 
in Holland by the discovery of Hudson was un- 
bounded, says Berthold Fernow in his chapter on 
" New Netherland " in Winsor's " Narrative and 
Critical History of America," particularly because 
" the newly discovered country abounded in fur- 
bearing animals," an important consideration to 
a people compelled " to resort to very warm cloth- 
ing in winter." 

The voyage of Hudson was followed by a num- 
ber of private ventures, and, under authority, the 
Dntch established themselves on Manhattan Is- 
land in 1614. In 1623 more formal possession was 
taken of the territory by the West India Company, 
which had been finally chartered in 1621 by the 
States General. In the former year Captain Cor- 
nells Jacobsen Mey entered the Prince Hendrick 
or South River, built Fort Nassau near Red Bank, 
and named the north cape of Delaware Bay in his 
honor, while Adrian Joresson Tienpont, in the 
Prince Mauritius or North River, strengthened the 
defenses on the point of Manhattan Island. Near 
the fort at Albany, which had been erected in 
1618, he built a new structure which he called 
Fort Orange. 

Preparations were made for colonizing and gov- 
erning the settlements of the Hudson River Val- 



THE " HALF MOON. 



English navigator; tirst known in April, 
lt)07, wlien he started on iiis tirst nutortu 
nate voyage for diseovery i>t' northeast pas- 
sage. 

lieaehcd Nova ZembJa lt>U8; sailed on 
ihird voyage In "Half Moon " from Am- 
sterdam MU)!), discovering month of Hudson 
liiver. 

Sailed oil last vo\a^< .....1 reached (ireen- 
hnid, .J une^ 1010; V; discovered Hudson 
Straight and Bay; crew ihutined and cast 
him. his son John, and seven others adrift, 
ill a shallop, Midsummer Day, 1611; no 
trape of him was ever found. 





HENRY' HUDSON 



ONY AND AS A STATE 107 

ley. Director Peter Miuuit, in 102G, for the value 
of twenty-four dollars, secured the Indian title to 
Manhattan Island, and a new " charter of freedom 
and exemptions," strongly tinctured with the 
faults of the feudal system, was secured from the 
government of Holland. But while this charter 
was under discussion some of the directors of the 
West India Company, between April, 1630, and 
July, 1631, " took advantage of their position and 
secured for themselves a share in the new priv- 
ileges by purchasing from the Indians, as the 
charter required, the most conveniently located 
and fertile tracts of land." This policy of pur- 
chase, instituted by the Dutch and adopted by the 
Quakers, was a recognition that the Indian had 
rights of life, liberty, opinion, and property. It 
was the acknowledgment of those rights that won 
for the Dutch the friendship of the Indian, who, 
by holding back the French in Canada, made Hol- 
land's province in America a possibility and thus 
permitted united action of the colonies in the 
French and Indian War. 
Of the patroonships established along the upper 

, . ^_ ^ ^ - Of several Voyages made in lae t. 

Hudson and m New Jersey but one, Rensselaers- pana of the worw. namely, ecbop*. 

/VESICA, A£iA, and AitiucA, 

wyck, at Fort Orange, was successful. An as- b,d 

sociation of merchants, among whom was Cap-L^^V^D PIETERS 

' ^ ^ de VRIES, Ordnance-Mastet of the Moe 

tain David Pietersen de Vries, the cartographer, ^"^l^^^f'^-^lT^Tli^Ztf'^' 

had purchased the two lower counties of the pres-k^, . ^'""' ^'TZ , .^ . 

. . tDhcreinarcicBcnbcbtDnatBalt 

ent State of Delaware, to which region were sent i,f j,o9 t^ab bp \Da\n. <Sac^€omw^ i 

lintmols. Birbg, kinb of i~i0t)C0 ani) 
Saoogc Iflm, — lountfrfriltb to 

tkt Clb,— anil ll)e CDooft* aab BiMt* 
■iib ibcit DrobMU. 



SHORT HISTORICAL 
loumal noUe 




TITLE-PAGE OF DE VRIES's JOURf 



108 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

two vessels filled with colony-planters, designed 
to cultivate grain and tobacco and to conduct the 
whale fishery. The plan proving partially suc- 
cessful, a second attempt was made, this time in 
New Jersey. 

Upon the 3d of June, 1631, Director Peter Min- 
uit issued a patent to Samuel Godyn and Samuel 
Bloemmsert, under the " jurisdiction of Their Noble 
High Mightinesses, the Lords States-General of 
the United Netherlands and the Incorporated 
West India Company, Department of New 
Amsterdam." It is one of two documents found 
in Holland which have come down from the times 
of the Dutch West India Company, the rest hav- 
ing been sold as waste paper. The Indians, 
" lawful owners, proprietors, and inhabitants of 
the East side of Goddyn's East bay called Cape 
de Maye," through Peter Heyssen, skipper of the 
" Walvis," and Gillis Hosset, commissary of the 
vessel, evidently agents of Godyn and Bloem- 
msert, conveyed to the patroons a tract of land em- 
bracing sixteen square miles. The estate, which 
is loosely described, but which included the south- 
ern portion of Cape May County, is designated as 
being upon " the east side of Godyn's bay or Cape 
de May, reaching 4 miles from the said cape to- 
wards the bay, and 4 miles along the coast south- 
ward, and another 4 miles inland." 

In May, 1632, a second expedition came to the 



v/^^^ ^/H^hvtili: (^i-ecMte^* 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



109 



South Kiver, but the Indians having killed the 
thirty-two settlers at Zwanendale in the State of 
Delaware, the attempts toward colonization in 
Delaware and Cape May were abandoned. Two 
years later the title to these tracts was once more, 
by sale, vested in the West India Company. 

The creation of the patroonship in America is 
one of those interesting features of colonial life 
almost forgotten. Claiming manorial rights, with 
power to hold courts, the " patroon " was granted 
a tract of land, if on a river, sixteen miles upon 
one bank or eight miles upon both banks, extend- 
ing into the back country as far " as the situation 
of the occupiers will permit." In consideration 
of such a grant of land, of which the patroon was 
judge as well as owner, he bound himself to 
transport to the Hudson or the Delaware fifty set- 
tlers above the age of fifteen, provide each at his 
own expense with a stocked farm, furnish a pas- 
tor and schoolmaster, and to charge a low rent. 
The emigrants bound themselves to cultivate the 
land for ten years, to use only Holland cloth, to 
have their grain ground at the patroon's mill, and 
to offer the sale of the grain first to the patroon. 

Under the administration of Wouter Van Twil- 
ler, who as director succeeded Peter Minuit, the 
affairs of New Netherland came to an unhappy 
pass. An Indian purchase of lands in Connecticut 
in 1633 and the erection of Fort Hope, near Hart- 




DUTCH PATROON. 



110 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

ford, led to a quarrel with the English, and the 
erection of Fort Beversrede on the Schuylkill, 
with additions made to Fort Nassau, implied a 
bold assertion of Holland's claims to all the lands 
in the valleys of the Hudson and the Delaware. 
The revenues of the Dutch West India Company 
were used in building up New Amsterdam (New 
York City) and Fort Orange (Albany), while the 
director granted to himself and his friends the 
best lands in the colony. 

Quarrels between the patroon of Eensselaers- 
wyck and the West India Company over the inter- 
pretation of the privileges granted in 1629, the fail- 
ure of the company to send colonists to America, 
and Van Twiller's maladministration, as pointed 
out by Berthold Femow, were the causes leading 
to a general retrogression of the colony. But as the 
charter of the company was the fundamental evil 
it was decided to overthrow the monopoly and to 
open the colony, in trade and agriculture, " to ev- 
ery immigrant denizen or foreigner." Into New 
Amsterdam poured a new population, — New Eng- 
landers, escaping religious persecution, freed 
servants from the tobacco plantations of Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, wealthy planters, and peas- 
ant farmers of Continental Europe, — so that in 
1643 eighteen nationalities were represented in a 
population early cosmopolitan. 

The administration of William Kieft, who suc- 



/^^l/^i^{H»/^ 



<fuMM^ 



ONY AND AS A STATE 111 

ceeded Van Twiller in 1637 and remained in office 
until 1647, was largely marked by a demand for 
popular representation in the government of the 
colony. The first representative body upon the 
shores of the Hudson was an advisory board 
elected in 1643 by the people to consult with the 
director and his council upon the expediency of 
an Indian war. This board the director abol- 
ished, although the small towns in the colony en- 
joyed as large a share of self-governing as those 
in the mother country. New Amsterdam, how- 
ever, was still ruled through the company by the 
director and his council. 

The arrival of Peter Stuyvesant as director 
of New Netherland meant a certain political 
change. Under his instructions the colony was to 
be governed by the director-general, and a coun- 
cil composed of the vice-director and the fiscal, 
an officer appointed to give his opinion upon fi- 
nancial and judicial questions and, if required, to 
act as public prosecutor, while the people were 
given the right to be heard by the provincial gov- 
ernment on the general conditions of the province. 
But in spite of an evident desire to do justice, al- 
though obstinate in tenaciously holding to the 
rights and privileges of his office, Stuyvesant was 
compelled to witness the decline and ultimate fajl 
of Holland's power in America. Hampered loy 
lack of funds, he could not provide for the pro- 




.#■■ 
stuyvebant's bowery house. 




112 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

tection of New Amsterdam, which, was almost 
destroyed by an attack of the Indians from the 
surrounding country in 1655, while the military 
force of New Netherland was rooting out Sweden 
on the Delaware. This disaster was avenged in 
1663, when, for the murder of several Esopus set- 
tlers, the Indian tribe of that name was obliter- 
ated. 

In a treaty with Connecticut in 1650 the director 
had been compelled to relinquish Holland's claims 
to the soil of that colony. The principal towns of 
Long Island were in the hands of the English. 
Stuyvesant had assumed some of the quarrels of 
Kieft — enough to create a popular party crying 
for liberty, which obtained his consent, reluctant- 
ly given, for the meeting of a General Assembly 
to consider the state of the province. 

Upon the Delaware affairs were in little better 
shape. From 1655 to 1657 both the Swedish and 
Dutch settlers were treated to a display of ad- 
ministrative incompetence, while in May of the 
latter year the West India Company ceded a part 
of the Delaware region to the City of Amsterdam, 
and in consequence the name of Fort Casimir was 
changed to New Amstel and Christina to Altena. 
TheJ:^mriHtng^^^yeBa:^^=:l^lli^ 1664, when the Dutch 
DSsessions passed into the hands of the English, 
tr^ere occupied with internal quarrels between the 
authOTities, and external jtrouMis _with Maryland 




MSTKKPAM, HOLLAND 



ONY AND AS A STATE 113 

concerning the Indian question. During the dec- 
ade of Dutch rule the colony on the Delaware 
made little or no progress. Its very helplessness 
was almost pathetic. 

Of the settlements made upon the New Jersey 
shore of the Hudson Kiver and intimately asso- 
ciated with the early history of the Dutch in 
New York was the locality known as Hobo- 
can-hackingh, where the Indians and fur traders 
crossed to trade gewgaws for peltries. Here in 
1609, upon the voyage of the " Half Moon," Henry 
Hudson and Juet, his mate and historiographer, 
saw the " cliff that looked of the color of white 
green " — now the Castle Point estate of the Stev- 
ens family, and which the Dutch navigators sup- 
posed to be formed of copper or silver ore. 

In the year 1630 was created the patroonship of 
Pavonia, derived from pavo, the Latin equivalent 
of the Dutch paaun, peacock, which appears in 
the surname of Michiel Pauw, Burger of Amster- 
dam and Baron of Achtienhoven, in South Hol- 
land. His patroonship embraced the Hudson 
River front opposite New York City, thus includ- 
ing Hobocan-hackingh, from which the locative 
" hackingh " was later dropped. He made little 
progress in settling the tract, in compliance with 
the conditions of his grant, and the West India 
Company brought him to account in 1634, seeking 
to revoke their concession. He resisted, and the 




CAST! 

(Prom «r >l.l j)riri(, 



114 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

company bought him out for twenty-six thousand 
florins. In 1633 the company had erected two 
houses in Pavonia — one at Communipaw and one 
at Ahasimus, the former later occupied by Jan 
Evertsen Bout (1634) and the latter by Cornells 
Van Vorst (1636), who died in 1638. 

During the Dutch occupancy of New York but 
little development was made at Hobocan-hack- 
ingh — " the place of the tobacco pipe." In 1643 
Aert Teunissen Van Putten occupied a farmhouse 
and brewhouse which had been erected north of 
Hoboken, and attempts were made to promote 
agriculture. But the somewhat inaccessible river 
front and the superior advantages of the lower 
land to the southward led to the later but more 
active growth of Hoboken's neighbor — Jersey 
City. 

From the unsuccessful patroonship of Michiel 
Pauw sprung another settlement, that of Michael 
Paulusen, who, in 1633, at Paulus Hook, erected 
a hut where he purchased peltries from the In- 
dians. The site of this trading hut lies nearly 
one thousand feet to the westward of the ferry 
house, the river having been filled in to that ex- 
tent. For many years the little colony at Jersey 
City remained a trading and small agricultural 
community, nor was it until 1660 that the town 
of Bergen, now Jersey City Heights, was estab- 
lished, and for the protection of the inhabitants 




THE VAN VORBT HOMESTEAD AT AHASIMUS. 

'. reey City.) 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



115 



a palisaded fort was erected at Bergen Square. 
A Keformed Dutch Church was organized imme- 
diately, the people worshiping for nearly twenty 
years in the log schoolhouse, until a substantial 
church edifice was erected in 1682. The congre- 
gation is the oldest in New Jersey. Here the 
Dutch settlers could look far to the eastward over 
the island-dotted swamps, where Jersey City was 
some day to arise, and down its long road, often 
tide-swept, as late as the Revolutionary War, to 
the sand-spit at Paulus Hook. Beyond lay the 
Hudson and the tree-girt shores of Manhattan 
Island, and in the blue haze the lowlands of 
Brooklyn. 

Through the ignorance and stupidity of Govern- 
or William Kieft the early annals of Jersey City 
were " stained by a most atrocious tragedy." The 
Tappan Indians of the vicinity were most peace- 
ably disposed, and, being harassed by a northern 
tribe, fled for protection to the settlers of Com- 
munipaw, now the village of Lafayette. Moved by 
the arguments and wine of those greedy for Indian 
lands, Kieft gave an order for the extirpation of 
the members of this tribe, who had thrown them- 
selves upon the hospitality of the settlers. Ac- 
cording to William L. Stone, in his study of the 
suburbs of New York, printed in the '^Memorial 
History " of that city, eighty Dirfch soldiers, on 
the night of February 27, 1643/ under command 




GOVERNOR KIEFT'B HOUSE ANI> CHURCH. 



116 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



of a Sergeant Rodolf, attacked the sleeping In- 
dians, who were encamped at Jan de Lacher's 
Hook in Lafayette, and, regardless of sex, with 
brutal atrocity, massacred eighty aborigines, 
young and old. The bodies of the dead were 
thrown indiscriminately into trenches. Believing 
that they had been attacked by the Mohawks, 
some of the refugees fled to New Amsterdam, 
begging from the inhuman governor a protection 
to which they were so well entitled. 

The natural result was an Indian war, waged 
with unrelenting fury from the Raritan to the 
Connecticut. Farms were laid waste, women and 
children dragged into captivity, and " not a white 
person was safe except, indeed, those who sought 
and found refuge within the palisades of Fort 
Amsterdam." Thereafter the history of the settle- 
ments in Hoboken and Jersey City is without espe- 
cial interest until the arrival of the English con- 
querors. 

During the period of political control of Hol- 
land over the territory embraced within the limits 
of the State of New Jersey her occupancy of the 
soil west of the Hudson River was of a distinctive- 
ly tentative character. Over a vast portion of the 
State the foot of the white man had never trod. 
Toward the Swedes the position of Holland wa«! 
that of armed neutrality , and in spite of occasional 



assurance^ of rfriendship the Dutch awaited the 




ONK OF THF \YEST INDIA COMPANY'S HOUSES. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



117 



time when Swedish politics had become so shaped 
that the Delaware settlements would fail an easy 
prey. 

At last, finding them unprotected, Holland 
strucli the blow and assimilated the trading posts 
and the farms in the Delaware and Schuylkill 
Valleys. Other than this, the attention of the 
Dutch was devoted almost exclusively to the up- 
building of Albany and New York and the estab- 
lishment of communities upon the lower Hudson. 
In short, the political power of Holland was due 
more to physical than to artificial causes, and to 
the fact that England, during the Cromw^ellian 
period, had first civil war and then European com- 
plications to occupy her attention. In holding the 
mouth of the Hudson and adjacent territory, and 
later the Delaware, the Dutch separated the New 
England colonies from the possessions of the Eng- 
lish crowm in Maryland and Virginia, and were 
in a sense placed in a position to dictate terms 
to an intruder. Such would, indeed, have been 
the case had not the Dutch West India Company 
been at the first so unwieldy a corporation. Its 
assumptiveness fostered jealousies, and its 
powder, exercised through more or less obstinate 
and inefficient governors, bore heavily upon the 
colonists. When the superior force of England 
came at last the conquerors found a community 
which, through misgovernment, was quite ready 




118 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




DUTCH WINDMILL 



to change masters, provided the newcomers per- 
mitted them the liberty of ancient speech, do- 
mestic customs, and social and religious freedom. 
These privileges being granted, it is later that the 
true Dutch influence which has been of a most 
^enduring character appears in New Jersey. 

A recent historian very properly observes that 
in summing up the question of the occupancy of 
New Jersey by the Dutch and Swedes the fact re- 
mains undisputed that, while vast claims were 
made by both nations, neither regarded their set- 
tlements, in the State, as anything more than mere 
outlying dependencies. The Dutch interests were 
centered in New York and Albany, the Swedish in 
Wilmington and Tinicum Island, while but little 
effort was made to colonize New Jersey. 

Underlying all assertions made that both the 
Dutch and Swedes sought a religious asylum in the 
New World is the ever-recurring fact that the two 
nations were moved by a common impulse — that 
of territorial acquisition in the partition of a new 
continent and the economic advantages derivable 
therefrom. Indeed, both the Hollanders and 
Swedes, at home, enjoyed a large degree of re- 
ligious freedom, and, while both transplanted to 
America a spirit of toleration, the contention that 
they came to America solely to seek such an ad- 
vantage falls to the ground. 

Nevertheless it must not be forgotten that to 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



119 



the Hollander is due the credit for establishing 
the principle of purchasing Indian title to land, 
that he planted wherever he went his church and 
his school, that in spite of a certain intensity of 
obstinate pride he respected civil authority and 
lent his aid to the upbuilding of a moral state. 
In politics the Hollander took the side of justice 
to the oppressed; in religion he fought to the end 
for the sake of principle. While New Amsterdam 
was struggling for existence Old Amsterdam was 
the center of a life of culture and refinement, 
where science, art, and music, as well as the 
learned professions, were joined in a community 
of interests. While such progress at home found 
but faint reflection in America, the hardships 
which the colonists encountered for the commer- 
cial glory of the mother country must ever be to 
Holland as great a compensation as their presence 
to distant generations of America was a gain. 




FIRST VIEW OF NKW AMSTERDAM. 



CHAPTER \ I 

The English Conquest and Occupation 




IIs^ a memorable critique entitled '' The Eng- 
lish in New York " John Austin Stevens 
says : " The trading spirit is not itself 
sufficient to establish successful settle- 
ment, and monopolies cannot safely be in- 
trusted with the government of colonies." In this 
enunciation may be found the true reason of the 
failure of Holland to sustain New Netherland in 
America, where, during an equal period of occu- 
pancy, there were seven thousand residents as 
opposed to one hundred thousand English upon 
the north and south. In the contest with France 
for the control of the Indian fur trade Holland 
had neglected practically every political and 
economic consideration underlying the growth real of new Amsterdam. 
and development of a transatlantic dependency. 

For some years England had looked upon New 
Netherland with longing eyes. From time to time 
her right to the soil had been asserted in a des- 
ultory manner, but it was in the passage of 
the Navigation Act in 1660 that the first blow 
against Holland's commercial supremacy was 
struck. In avoidance of the act an illicit trade 
had sprung up along the Atlantic seaboard be- 
tween the English and the Dutch, and the royal 
revenues had been deprived of £10,000 per annum. 
Charles II, who needed money more than aught 
else, resolved that the English settlements upon 
the Atlantic coast from northernmost Massachu- 



124 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

setts to the most southern point of the Carolinas, 
must be homogeneous, and thus be placed in a 
position to contribute to the funds lavished in 
England upon courtiers, charlatans, and courte- 
sans. Lightly upon the King sat Cromwell's rec- 
ognition, in 1654, of Holland's title to lands in the 
New World, so lightly, indeed, that when the 
States-General in 1664 demanded that the bounda- 
ries of Holland's and England's possessions in 
America be adjusted, Charles, rather than ac- 
knowledge any claim of the Dutch, met the de- 
mand with a declaration of war. 

Both in England and in the New World condi- 
tions favored such an attitude on the part of the 
crown. Foremost in the movement to Anglicize 
all the seaboard settlements was Edward Hyde, 
the royal chancellor, whose daughter had married 
James, Duke of York, brother of King Charles II 
and heir to the throne. Under the view taken by 
the crown lawyers, who were strenuous in support 
of the personal rule of the Stuarts, it was held 
that a title from the King to his brother would 
merge in the crown, creating a centralized form 
of government, and indirectly put a quietus upon 
the tendency of the New England colonies to drift 
into republicanism. 

The movement for control of this domain began 
with legal proceedings as a precedent for military 
conquest. In 1621 Sir William Alexander, a cour- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



125 



tier, and at the time secretary of state of James 
I, obtained a grant for Nova Scotia; in 1G28 
Charles I| granted him the province of Canada; 
and in 1635, at tlie request of the King, the Plym- 
outh Company issued a patent to Alexander (who 
in 1630 had been raised to the peerage as Vis- 
count of Stirling, and in 1633 had been advanced 
to the dignity of Earl of Stirling and Viscount 
Canada) for Long Island. About 1GG2 Henry, 
third Earl of Stirling, conveyed his title to Long 
Island to the Duke of York, and upon March 12, 
1663-61, Charles II issued a patent to James, 
Duke of York, for all the islands between 
Cape Cod, the Narrows, and Hudson River, in- 
cluding Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, as well 
as all the lands between the Connecticut Eiver 
and the east side of Delaware Bay. The conti- 
nental boundary was a line from the head of the 
Connecticut to the head of the Hudson, thence to 
the source of the Mohawk, and finally to the east 
side of Delaware Bay. 

Excepting that the government of this royal do- 
main should be consistent with the statutes of 
England, the patent gave to the Duke of York ab- 
solute power to govern within this dominion. To 
four commissioners. Colonel Richard Nicolls, Colo- 
nel George Cartwright, Sir Robert Carr, royal 
army officers, and Samuel Maverick, selected by 
the Duke of Y''ork, were given instructions to suh- 




CHARI.F.S ri. 



Chftrlea II., /'. Mav 29, lASO: wan crowned Jan. 1, !>1; 
Tfit. 6, 1685. 



126 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



due the Dutch and "' increase the prerogatives of 
the Crown in the New England Colonies," which 
colonies the Duke of York desired most heartily 
to add to the great estate patented to him by 
his brother. To these Commissioners was dele- 
gated the administration of civil and military af- 
fairs in New England. Particularly to Colonel 
Nicolls, a man of good education and devotedly 
attached to the wavering fortunes of the house 
of Stuart during the Cromwellian period, were 
granted plenary powers as deputy governor over 
the domain covered by the King's patent. 

Immediate preparations were made for a mili- 
tary invasion. In May, 1664, there sailed from 
Portsmouth a small fleet, with three companies 
of the King's veterans, bound for New England. 
Securing reinforcements, the squadron later an- 
chored off Coney Island and invested New Amster- 
dam. The Dutch town, neglected by the States- 
General and the impotent Dutch West India Com- 
pany, with Director Stuyvesant in Albany attend- 
ing to Indian affairs, was totally unprepared for 
such an unequal contest. Stuyvesant hastened to 
New Amsterdam, and for a time, demanding that 
the town be put in a state of defense, stubbornly 
refused to yield. Discretion at last overcoming 
his willful valor, Stuyvesant agreed to capitula- 
tion, protesting against the cowardice of the peo- 
ple, who preferred a change of masters rather 




THE WEST INDIA COMPANT'S 8TOREHOC8F. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 127 

than the destruction of their property by bom- 
bardment. 

Upon the 29th of August, 1664, without blood- 
shed, the articles of surrender were ratified and 
the English colors, by order of Nicolls, were 
raised over the fort at New Amsterdam, there- 
after to be known as New York in honor of the 
duke. To Cartwright, Albany and Esopus on the 
Hudson capitulated, while the settlements on the 
Delaware surrendered quietly to Sir Robert Carr. 
Thus within two months the political supremacy 
of Holland in America became obliterated. In the 
conquest New Jersey, as yet undesignated ex- 
cept as a part of New Netherland, was formally 
recognized for the first time in colonial history as 
a dependency of the British crown. 

In the administration of the newly acquired ter- 
ritory Deputy Governor Nicolls pursued a policy 
as just as it was beneficial. The changes made 
were purely of a political character. The ad- 
ministration of justice was conducted practically 
under the old forms and existing officials were 
continued in place. A code, known as the 
" Duke's Laws," permitting jury trials, equal tax- 
ation, and assurances of perfect land title from 
the Duke of York, was established in 1665, limited 
first to Long Island, but in the course of twenty 
years gradually extended throughout New York 
and to the settlements on the Delaware. Rights of 



■^Dd^irtr (a?., 



128 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



property, both private and those of the Dutch 
West India Company, were guaranteed, while 
free passage of individuals and trading ships be- 
tween New Netherland and Holland was per- 
mitted. 

To the inhabitants freedom of religion to all 
professing Christianity and the recognition of the 
Dutch doctrine and discipline in ecclesiastical 
matters were assured. In view of the establish- 
ment of good government, and of non-interference 
in local language, customs, and manners, most of 
the inhabitants of New Amsterdam, including Di- 
rector Stuyvesant, subscribed to the oath of alle- 
giance. In New Jersey the few inhabitants also 
accepted, without question, the supremacy of the 
conquerors. 

By the treaty of Breda, in 1667, the English title 
to New Netherland was confirmed after a short 
but sharp European contest between Holland and 
England, which in no way affected New York and 
New Jersey. 

While the squadron of conquest was upon the 
high seas James, Duke of York, executed deeds of 
lease and release for a part of his American terri- 
tory. With the signing of these deeds upon June 
23 and 24, 1664, the separate history of New Jer- 
se3^ as Ov^^^^^^y begins. 

There were in the Stuart court two men of in- 
fluence and power who, like NicoUs, had attached 




PETER STUYVESANT 
Last Diitrh iioveruor or director-general 
»)f New York 1647-04; called "Peter the 
Headstrong"; born Hqlland 1002. 

Asserted vice-refial authority in New 
Netherland; arrahiied boundary lines be- 
tween English and Dutch possessions 1650; 
subjugated New Sweden 1655; surrendered 
to the English Sept. 8, 1664. 

Died on his " Great Bouwerie " farm, 
Manhattan, Aug., 1682; buried in Saint 
Mark's churchyard, New York Citv. 




ONY AND AS A STATE 129 

themselves to Charles II and James during the 
years preceding the Restoration. One was Lord 
John Berkeley, Baron of Stratton, the other Sir .^ ^.^ /^^ 
George Carteret, of Saltrum, who had interests injJ/^^^-3t-^^7v""c^^ 
the Carolina venture and were associated withw ^y 

the Duke of York in the Admiralty Board. To 
these faithful adherents James granted all that 
portion of his acquisition bounded on the east by 
the main sea and the Hudson River, extending 
southward as far as Cape May, on the westward 
by Delaware Bay and River and " as far as the 
Northermost Branch of the said Bay or River of 
Delaware which is forty-one Degrees and forty 
Minutes of Latitude," and thence in a straight line 
to the Hudson River in forty-one degrees of lati- 
tude, " to be called by the Name or Names of New 
Csesarea or New Jersey." The designation was in 
honor of Sir George Carteret's defense in 1649, 
of his native Isle of Jersey, when attacked by the 
army and navy of the parliamentarians. 

The duke reserved a yearly rental of " Twenty 
Nobles of lawful money of England," payable at 
Inner Temple Hall, London, at the feast of Saint 
Michael the Arch- Angel. The grant conveyed all 
the powers conferred upon the duke, which, al- 
though not expressly stated, included the right of 
government, thus, as was conceived, "transfer- 
ring with the land the allegiance and obedience of 
the inhabitants." Thus it was that the two noble- 




130 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

men, " true and absolute Lords Proprietors of all 
the province of New Caesarea or New Jersey," 
found themselves owners of a vast tract of land, 
its great river fronts sparsely occupied by Dutch 
and Swedes and nomadic bands of Indians, and 
the proposition regarding colonization as yet un- 
solved. 

The conditions surrounding emigration to a 
practically new and unexplored land were favor- 
able. As shown by a contemporary writer, there 
were in the British Isles, at the close of the Com- 
monwealth, a large body of yeomanry who ex- 
tended to Charles II little more than a half- 
hearted welcome. Puritans and Independents in 
England, and descendants of the old Covenanters 
in Scotland, with many members of the rapidly 
growing sect of Quakers, represented an element 
fearful of the return of Roman Catholicism and 
of autocracy. Added to this were soldiers of for- 
tune, who had possibly fought with Cavaliers and 
Round Heads, men of no religious convictions, 
but who were willing to seek a new home, younger 
sons of the country gentry with no hope of patri- 
mony, and a scattering representation from the 
submerged class of London and the smaller cities. 
It was from these social factors that Berkeley and 
Carteret sought their settlers. 

For the securing of these people Berkeley and 
arteret, upon February 10, 1664-65, signed and 



I 



8EAL OF. UERKKLEY AND CAUTERKT. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 131 

published " The Concessions cmd Agreements of the 
Lords Proprietors of the Province of New Caesar ea 
or New Jersey to and with all and every the Ad- 
venturers and all such as shall settle or plant 
there." As a declaration of organic law of the 
colony " the Magna Charter of New Jersey," the 
Concession and Agreements were liberal in their 
terms, although the instrument was theoretically 
devised, as neither Berkeley nor Carteret, as sug- 
gested by the late William A. Whitehead, had 
communicated in any way with the inhabitants 
or had even personally inspected the peculiarities 
of the country. Under its terms the government 
of the province was lodged in a governor, a coun- 
cil, to be chosen by the chief executive, to consist 
of not less than six nor more than twelve mem- 
bers; and an assembly of twelve members chosen 
annually by the " freemen." The appointment of 
all officers was delegated to the governor and 
council, who were to execute the laws and to exer- 
cise a general supervision over all courts to be 
created by the Assembly. To the Assembly was 
given the right of passing all laws, not inconsist- 
ent with the statutes of England or the interest 
of the Lords Proprietors; these laws to "receive 
publication from the governor and council," re- 
maining in force for one year, during which time 
they were to be submitted to the Lords Proprie- 
tors. 




132 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

To every freeman embarking with the first gov- 
ernor one hundred and fifty acres of land was 
promised, provided the immigrant equipped him- 
self with " a good musket, * * * bandiliers, 
and match convenient," a similar provision being 
made for every able man servant so equipped. 
To slaves over fourteen seventy-five acres of land 
were promised, and a similar acreage to every 
Christian servant upon the expiration of his or 
her " time." In towns and boroughs to be laid 
out under direction of the governor and council 
one-seventh was reserved for the Lords Proprie- 
tors. Occupation of land was secured by a war- 
rant from the governor directing the surveyor to 
lay out the tract, whereupon a grant or patent 
signed by the governor and a majority of the coun- 
cil was issued. After 1670 such land was sub- 
jected to a quit-rent of not less than half a penny 
per acre. Liberty of conscience was guaranteed, 
and each parish was allowed two hundred acres 
for its ministers, whose maintenance was to be 
provided for by the Assembly. 

In April, 1665, Philip Carteret, a relative of Sir 
George Carteret, sailed from England bearing his 
commission as the first governor of New Jersey, 
reaching New York on July 29th, Here for the 
first time Deputy Governor Nicolls was informed 
of the alienation of New Jersey by his royal mas- 
ter, while Governor Carteret was advised that 



ONY AND AS A STATE 133 

Nicolls, in ignorance of the transfer, had con- 
firmed an Indian land sale, the grantees being 
from Long Island. Already four families were 
settled upon this tract, lying opposite Staten Is- 
land. Deputy Governor Nicolls had also con- 
firmed an Indian sale of lands lying west of Sandy 
Hook, later known as the "Monmouth Patent," 
from which sprang the settlements of Middletown 
and Shrewsbury. Thus in spite of the efforts made 
by Nicolls to perfect his New York government 
to provide for the wellbeing of his people, and 
to hold back the French in Canada by the support 
of Indian allies, he found his authority threatened 
by the dismemberment of the domain under his 
control and the establishment of a rival, if not 
antagonistic, government. 

In the meantime Governor Carteret landed at a 
point which he called Elizabethtown in honor of 
the wife of Sir George Carteret. Furthermore the 
inhabitants of New Jersey were required to take 
an oath of allegiance to the King and the Lords 
Proprietors. To this end thirty-three settlers of 
Bergen, sixty-five inhabitants of Elizabethtown, 
thirteen residents of Woodbridge, twenty-four 
men of Navesink, two of Middletown, and two 
upon the Delaware Eiver subscribed to the oath 
during the next two years. 

The year 1666 was notable not only in the his- 
tory of the colony but of the State. The " Con- 



134 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

cessions and Agreements " having been published 
in New England, and receiving the attention of 
members of the Congregational Churches in Mil- 
ford, Guilford, Branford, and New Haven, a com- 
mittee of these Puritans, led by Robert Treat, was 
sent to Governor Carteret to examine the advan- 
tages offered by the Lords Proprietors. Rejecting 
Burlington as a possible location, decision was 
made upon the present site of the town of Newark. 
In May, 1666, the New Englanders with " their 
families, their beloved pastor, their church rec- 
ords and communion service, their deacons, and 
their household goods " reached their destination. 
After some trouble with the Indians a purchase 
was made including Newark, Belleville, Bloom- 
field, and the Oranges. In the settlement were 
some thirty families who in " our Town upon the 
River Passaick " desired " to be of one heart and 
consent, through God's blessing with one hand 
they may endeavor the carrying on of spiritual 
concernments as also civil and town affairs ac- 
cording to God and a Godly government." To aid 
in their local affairs " Fundamental Agreements " 
were signed, which were as perfectly in keeping 
with the spirit of Puritan theocracy as could be 
devised. Their tenor was the limitation of polit- 
ical and religious activity, through the agency of 
town meeting, to those who maintained " the Pu- 
rity of Religion professed in the Congregational 



ONY AND AS A STATE 135 

Churches," yet so well did the system of intoler- 
ance succeed that by 1685 Milford, alias Newark, 
was spoken of as the most compact town in the 
province, with a population of about five hundred. 

From the beginnings of colonial life in New 
Jersey the attention of the settlers was mainly 
directed toward the adjustment of land titles and 
the settlement of conflicting claims. To the soil 
of New Jersey, as elucidated by John Whitehead, 
there were four great sources of title: first 
through the Indian; then through the Dutch; 
thirdly, those from Governor Nicolls; and lastly 
those from the Lords Proprietors. Behind all 
was the grant from Charles II claiming para- 
mount title by virtue of discovery and his un- 
doubted estate in the later colonies and parts of 
colonies originally granted as " Crown lands." 

Such were the conditions that presented them- 
selves to the first Assembly ever convened in New 
Jersey, which met in Elizabethtown, May 26-30, 
1668. To this Assembly came " Burgesses " from 
Bergen, Elizabethtown, Newark, Woodbridge, 
Middletown, and Shrewsbury. Among the legisla- 
tion of the body twelve caj)ital laws were passed, 
most of which breathe the lex taUonis of the He- 
braic dispensation. The members reassembled 
upon the 3d of November, when the famous Indian 
traders and interpreters, Peter Jegou and Fabrus 
Outout, represented the settlements on the Dela- 



0zCynci^tL ?l uc.o{£6 



136 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

ware. But the members precipitating a con- 
troversy between themselves and the governor, 
and in spite of attempts at reconciliation, the 
Assembly adjourned, after passing legislation af- 
fecting the militia, the Indians, and the marking 
of cattle. 

Into the second Assembly, which met November 
3, 1668, was injected the question of the validity 
of the land titles granted by Nicolls. Within 
the so-called Monmouth grant were the two 
little settlements of Middletown and Shrews- 
bury, whose deputies, refusing to take the 
oaths of allegiance and fidelity, were dismissed, 
particularly as the major part of the inhabitants 
of those communities had refused to pay their 
share of £30 levied by the first Legislature " for de- 
fraying the public charge." Nor would the au- 
thorities in the town publish the laws passed by 
the Assembly. 

It was contended that the Indian title, con- 
firmed by Nicolls, was supreme, and that if the 
residents of Middletown and Shrewsbury could 
not obtain relief from the burden of the proprie- 
tary quit-rents they would practically organize an 
independent government. In June, 1667, a local 
Assembly had met at the Highlands and declared 
inferentially in a guarded manner that the inhab- 
itants were not subject to the government of the 
Lords Proprietors. In Elizabethtown there was 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



137 



disaffection, which in fact spread to all the settle- 
ments, probably with the exception of Newark, 
which, in two successive town meetings, declared 
its willingness " to perform our Duty to the Lords 
or their Assigns." 

In March, 1672, with the colony in " confusion, 
anxiety, and doubt," an Assembly met presumably 
to discuss the vexed question of titles, " but the 
proceedings, not recognized by the governor and 
council were suppressed." Upon May 14 of the 
same year representatives from Elizabethtown, 
Newark, Woodbridge, Piscataway, and Bergen as- 
sembled and, not receiving the sanction of Philip 
Carteret and his council, proceeded to the election 
of a " President," owing to the absence of the 
governor. But not only was it claimed that their 
choice fell upon a " President " of the Assembly, 
but that he was also " President of the Country," 
practically an overt act of rebellion. The selec- 
tion of the delegates was James Carteret, said to 
be an illegitimate son of Sir George Carteret, who, 
having been made a landgrave of Carolina, had 
stopped in New Jersey on his way thither. Claim- 
ing to have a warrant from his father, " Presi- 
dent " Carteret assumed chief authority in spite 
of the issuance of a proclamation by Governor 
Carteret and promise of favor to those who would 
aid the Lords Proprietors. 

Under the advice of his council Governor Car- 




fARTKRKT ARMS. 



138 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




SEAL OF THE DUKB UF TOKK. 



teret departed for England, leaving John Berry as 
deputy governor. Upon the presentation to the 
Lords Proprietors of the condition of affairs in 
the province Sir George Carteret ordered " Presi- 
dent" Carteret to depart at once for Carolina. 
The authorities in New Jersey were directed by 
the Duke of York to notify the insurgents that 
the claims under the Nicolls patent would not be 
recognized, while the King confirmed Berry's ap- 
pointment and commanded obedience to the Lords 
Proprietors. The publication of these and similar 
documents tended at once to quiet the colony and 
to restore peace to the people. 

Scarcely had New Jersey entered upon a career 
of prosperity when the colony was called upon to 
renew its allegiance to Holland. To restrain the 
growing power of France a treaty, known as the 
Triple Alliance, was formed, in 1668, between 
England, Holland, and Sweden, which in 1672 was 
dissolved; a secret treaty between France and 
England was concluded and war was declared 
against Holland. Although defeated on land the 
Dutch were successful upon the sea, and in Au- 
gust, 1673, a Dutch fleet commanded by Evertsen 
appeared off Staten Island. The squadron was of 
formidable size. To the ships of the original com- 
plement men-of-war had been added as well as 
prizes captured from the Virginia fleet of tobacco 
ships in the Chesapeake. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 139 

Under Governor Francis Lovelace, who had suc- 
ceeded Deputy Governor Nicolls, the Island of 
Manhattan was as poorly prepared for defense as 
it had been in 1664, when the Dutch were in pos- 
session. Governor Lovelace had heard the 
rumor of the departure of the squadron, and had 
assembled a force, which was later dismissed, as 
the report was believed to be unfounded. Upon 
the 8th of August, 1673, six hundred Dutch sol- 
diers landed above New York City at a point ad- 
jacent to Wall Street, marched against Fort 
James, then commanded by Captain Manning, and 
his garrison of less than eighty men. By a singular 
coincidence Governor Lovelace was absent from 
the city upon a friendly visit to Governor Win- 
throp, of Connecticut, as Director Peter Stuyve- 
sant had been absent in 1664. As upon the former 
occasion New Y^ork surrendered in a bloodless con- 
test, the Hudson River towns made submission, 
while a council of war assembled composed of the 
Dutch commanders, Cornelius Evertsen, Jacob 
Benckes, and Captains Anthony Colve, Nicholas 
Boes, and Abram van Tyll. The name New York 
was changed to that of New Orange in honor of 
William of Orange, Staadholder. 

There appeared before this council inhabitants 
of " Elisabets Towne, Nieworke, Woodbridge, and 
Piscattway," of " New Yarsey," who petitione 
that they might be permitted to treat respecti 




JOHN WINTHROP. 
(Connecticut.) 



140 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

the surrender of these towns. The inhabitants of 
the " Village of Bergen and the Hamlets and 
Bouweries thereon depending," as well as " Mid- 
dletowne and Shroesbury," were also directed to 
send delegates for a similar purpose, under a 
threat of subjugation by force of arms. To the 
territory embracing these towns the generic name 
Achter Coll, " Back of the Bay," was given, al- 
though at first applied only to Newark Bay. For 
the towns officers known as schouts and schepens, 
popularly nominated and confirmed by the Dutch 
council, were selected. For the six English towns 
a general schout and a general secretary were ap- 
pointed. 

In the returns made to the council the popula- 
tion of the English towns for 1673 is given as fol- 
lows: Elizabethtown eighty men, Newark eighty- 
six men, Woodbridge fifty-four men, Piscataway 
forty-three men, Middletown sixty men, Shrews- 
bury sixty-eight men, with eighteen Quakers. Of 
practically four hundred men in the eastern part 
of the province a large proportion took the oath 
to support the government of their " High Mighti- 
nesses, the Lords States-General of the United 
Netherlands, and his Serene Highness, the Prince 
of Orange." 

The Dutch commanders, having appointed Cap- 
tain Anthony Colve governor-general of the prov- 
ince with authoritv over New Jersev, returned to 



.L^^C^ 




ONY AND AS A STATE 141 

Holland accompanied by the deposed English gov- 
ernor, Lovelace. For the government of the towns 
in New Jersey " provisional instructions " were 
sent to the schouts and schepens, who were to 
maintain the Reformed Christian religion in con- 
formity to the Synod of Dordrecht, to exercise 
jurisdiction in civil matters and misdemeanors, 
crimes being referable to the governor-general and 
his council. To them were referred all local police 
lands and gardens, and whatever pertained to 
agriculture, as well as the erecting of churches, 
school houses^ and similar public works. Upon the 
loth of November Governor-General Colve ap- 
pointed a general thanksgiving to be held upon 
the first Wednesday of every month, when " all 
manner of Labour and exercizings, of hunting, of 
flSshing, gaming, Excesse in drincking, and the 
Lyke " were forbidden, and " all Inkeepers and 
ordinaris not to Retayle any Licquors or drincke 
uppon Penalty of Corporall Punishment." 

The tenure of Dutch rule in New York and New 
Jersey was of short duration. Recognizing the 
impossibility of maintaining even a form of gov- 
ernment at so great a distance from Holland, the 
Prince of Orange made to Charles II a tender of 
his newly acquired territory, and upon the 9th of 
February, 1674, by the terms of a treaty signed at 
Westminster, New Jersey once more passed un- 



142 



NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 



der English control. The transfer was proclaimed 
in New York in July of the same year. 

With the advent of peace New Jersey became 
interested in a new dispute, one which eventually 
affected the political life of the province. Al- 
though the Dutch had ceded New York and New 
Jersey to the King, " it was held," says John Aus- 
tin Stevens, " that the rights of the Duke of York 
had been extinguished by the conquest, and that 
restitution to the sovereign did not convey restitu- 
tion to the subject." To accomplish this purpose 
the Duke of York obtained a new patent for his 
territory under date of June 29, 1674. The duke 
appointed as governor of his domain Major Ed- 
mund Andros, a man of gentle birth, whose juris- 
diction included among other parts of the main- 
land " all ye land from ye West side of Conecti- 
cut river to ye East side of Delaware Bay." The 
form of government designed was autocratic " of 
the most arbitrary nature in form, but of extreme 
mildness in practice; one which, insuring peace 
and happiness to the subject, would best contrib- 
ute to the authority and revenue of the master." 

Upon October 30, 1674, Major Andros arrived in 
New York and confirmed all titles previously de- 
rived from the crown, while Charles II, upon June 
13th of the same year, confirmed the title and gov- 
ernmental power of Carteret in New Jersey. 




IIIK A1M>11UB WUlUJhK hKA 



CHAPTER VII 
The Jersey s 



IT WAS upon the IStli of March, 1673-74, 
that John Fen wick, aforetimes major 
in the Parliamentarian Army and later 
a member of the Society of Friends, 
purchased from Lord Berkeley his half 
interest in the colony of New Jersey. With Fen- 
wick was associated Edward Byllynge, also a 
member of the Society, their object being the ere- / / 
ation in America of an asylum where for the first %.i 
time the perfect religious and political freedom of^7 
which George Fox dreamed would be establishedT - ^ 
upon earth. A ^ 

In this enterprise there was something of Uto-'* /^ , 
pia, yet much that appealed to a man of Fen- / /. 
wick's type of mind. He had fought for the 
church militant under Cromwell, he strove to es- 
tablish the church spiritual under Fox. In the 
deed Major Fenwick was named as trustee for 
Edward Byllynge as well as for his heirs and as- 
signs. 

The ever present dispute concerning landed in- 
terests at once appeared. To adjust the difficul- 
ties between Fenwick and Byllynge William Penn, 
who had but recently joined the Society, was 
called as arbitrator. To Fenwick Penn awarded 
one-tenth of the purchase, together with money, 
while nine-tenths were given to Byllynge. Soon 
thereafter Byllynge became financially involved, 
whereupon his nine undivided tenths, on February 




( rroTO a pAinting by Sir Peter Lely.) 



ft-or^A Rox, founder of the Society of Friendu : i. in 

' (W?., July, 1C24 ; began his work ui an 
t..:hei 1647; viaited the American coloniee, 
;u.:i»jui^ .-<«ir Jervey, shortly after IkiB mamage to 
Marararet rail; I in Londen. Nov. 13. IfiJK). 



146 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

10, 1674-75, were assigned in trust, for the benefit 
of creditors, to William Penn, Gawen Lawry, and 
Nicholas Lucas, also members of the Society. 
Subsequently Fenwick's tenth passed under their 
control. 

Based upon the transfer of Lord Berkeley to 
Fenwick the Duke of York, upon July 28-29, 1674, 
released to Sir George Carteret individually his 
moiety of the province. This second grant in- 
cluded all of New Jersey north of a line drawn 
from Barnegat Creek, " aboute the middle be- 
tweene Sandy point and Cape May," to another 
creek " next adjoyneing to and below a certaine 
Creeke in Delaware River called Rankokus Kill." 
This attempt at adjustment served merely to 
further complicate matters, and upon the request 
of the duke it was soon relinquished. 

John Fenwick, purposeful if not masterful, ar- 
rived in the Delaware during the month of June, 
1675, bringing with him, on the ship " Griffin," 
his children, relatives, settlers, and servants. 
Landing at a place to which he gave the name 
Salem — " peace,'' — Fenwick immediately came 
under the watchful eye of Governor Andros, who 
saw in the coming of Fenwick an opportunity to 
extend the influence of the Duke of York over the 
reign alienated by Berkeley. At a council held in 
New York, December 5, 1675, an order was issued 
that Fenwick be not received as owner of lands 



ONY AND AS A STATE 147 

upon the Delaware, and that no privilege or free- 
dom of custom or trading on the eastern shore of 
the bay or river be permitted. In the warrant 
from Governor Andros to the English sheriff on 
the Delaware it was charged that Penwick had 
granted land, dispossessed owners, sold their real 
property, assumed power of judicature in the es- 
tablishment of a manorial court, and granted dis- 
tilling licenses. Advances made to the obdurate 
proprietor that he peaceably submit to the New 
York government were met with peremptory re- 
fusals. A warrant was issued for Fenwick's ar- 
rest by the Duke of Y^'ork's officers at New Castle, 
Delaware. 

In spite of his claims of title Fenwick was de- 
tained by order of Governor Andros during the 
latter part of December, 1676. In January, 1676- 
77, Fenwick appeared before a special court in 
New York, where he was held in £500 bail not to 
act in a public capacity, and further gave a bond 
of £500 to prosecute an appeal to the King. Re- 
leased on parole, Fenwick returned to Salem, 
called " Swamptown " in derision by the Duke of 
York's officers, where he resumed the exercise of 
his proprietorship, appointed officials, and mad 
preparations for defense. Early in 1676 he ha 
laid out the liberties of Cohansey and Alloway 
and had provided for the planting of Salem. Mat- 
ters reached a crisis in 1678, when Goyernor An- 



VaUun Penn, ton of Sir WUlUm Penn, 
Tioe-«dmirml of Ireland and England; b. in 
London, Oct. 14. 1644; d. July 30, 1718. 





j^/u^m^ 



148 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




SEAL OF EAST JKRSEY 



dros appointed six " Overseers, selectmen, or Com- 
missioners," who were to be under the general 
jurisdiction of New Castle in keeping a court as 
" Town or Corporation att Elenburgh, and In 
Verckens kill or Hogg Creek." From this time 
until Fenwick sold his interest in his Salem 
colony the history of the settlement is clouded 
with charges and countercharges, so that the good 
designs of the Lord Proprietor came to naught. 

The actual separation between the colonies 
of East and West Jersey took place upon the 
1st day of July, 1676, when a quintipartite deed 
defined the interests of Sir George Carteret for 
himself and William Penn, of Rickmansworth, 
Gawen Lawry, of London, merchant, Nicholas 
Lucas, of Hertford, maltster, and Edward 
Byllynge, of Westminster, gentlemen, tenants in 
common of New Jersey. The line of partition, 
long known in boundary disputes as the " Prov- 
ince Line," extended from Little Egg Harbor to 
41°.40' north latitude to the Delaware River. To 
Carteret was awarded East Jersey; to Penn and 
his associates West Jersey. 

To the Society of Friends in England West Jer- 
sey offered many inducements as a new home. 
At the front of the movement stood Penn, the 
most noted convert of the Society and one of the 
most farsighted men of his age. His influence in 
the Society was unbounded, his energy and en- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



149 



thusiasm unlimited. Under his impulses two land 
purchasing and colonizing associations were 
formed in England, one composed of Friends in 
Yorkshire, the other of members of the Society 
in London. To emigrants the trustees of Byllynge 
offered an abundance of land, not only to freemen, 
but to servants. A letter signed by Penn, Lawry 
and Lucas, and addressed to those proposing t 
settle in West Jersey, was circulated with greal 
effect. Commissioners to govern the provinc 
were sent forward, but the crowning glory of the 
movement was that document of liberty known as 
" The Concessions and Agreements of the Pro- 
prietors, Freeholders, and Inhabitants of West 
New Jersey in America." 

The Concessions and Agreements unquestion- 
ably gave to the spirit of democracy a wider range 
than had any like expression of Anglo-Saxon or- 
ganic law. While the authorship is unknown, it 
may well be credited to William Penn, who, if he 
was not the Thomas Jefferson of this earlier 
Declaration, was unquestionably its inspiration. 
To the people was left the settlement of all mat- 
ters of a local character, the proprietors reserving 
to themselves merely the shadow of government. 

At the outset it was provided that the proprie- 
tors, freeholders, and inhabitants, assembling 
yearly upon the 25th day of March, — the new year 
according to the then prevailing form of reckon- 




SKAL OF WEST JER6ET, 



150 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

ing time under the Julian calendar, and still ob- 
served in West Jersey as the date upon which 
tenants' farm leases expire, — should elect " of and 
amongst themselves Ten honest and able Men " 
for the office of commissioners. On and after the 
25th of March, 1680, the elections were to be held 
in " some Publick place," each ten of the hundred 
proprietors selecting a commissioner. To avoid 
noise and confusion the elections were to be con- 
ducted by " ballating Trunks." General Assem- 
blies were to be elected in like manner, the elec- 
tions to be held upon the 1st of October. The 
Legislature could appoint its own time of meeting 
and of adjournment to such time and places as 
it saw fit, and of establishing a quorum. Full 
liberty of speech was granted the Assembly, with 
the right of entering and recording protest as- 
sured to members, the people being permitted " to 
have liberty to come in and hear and be witnesses 
of the votes and inclinations " of their representa- 
tives. 

The organization of the judiciary, the number 
of courts, their officers, salaries, and determina- 
tion of breaches of judicial trust were matters 
entirely within legislative control, the people di- 
rectly electing their justices and constables. 
Equal assessment and taxation were also guaran- 
teed, but, above all, absolute religious toleration 
was assured upon the fundamental assertion of 



ONY AND AS A STATE 151 

the Concessions and Agreements that " No Men 
nor number of Men upon Earth hath Power or 
Authority to rule over Men's Consciences in re- 
ligious Matters." 

In the various chapters of this remarkable docu- 
ment may be found the elementary principles un- 
derlying the " Bill of Rights," which formed so 
prominent a part of the later Federal and State 
constitutions. To a " Proprietor, Freeholder, 
Free-denizon, or Inhabitant of the Province " was 
guaranteed the privilege of being served with 
process in suits of a civil nature. The right of 
trial by jury composed of " Twelve good and law- 
ful Men of his Neighborhood " was assured before 
any inhabitant of West Jersey should be deprived 
of " Life, Limb, Liberty, Estate, Property, or any 
ways hurt in his or their Privileges, Freedoms, or 
Franchises." Perjury was severely punished, 
land transfers were to be made a matter of com- 
plete record, while in disputes with the natives a 
jury of six Indians and six settlers was to be 
chosen. The sentence and its execution in cases 
of murder and treason were to be left to the Gen- 
eral Assembly " to determine as they in the Wis- 
dom of the Lord shall judge meet and expedient." 
If any person gave, bestowed, or promised to vot- 
ers for members of the General Assembly " any 
Meat, Drink, Money, or Money's worth for pro- 
curement of their Choice and Consent " the briber 



152 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



was incapable of ever after being elected a mem- 
ber of that body. These Concessions were di- 
rected to be recorded " in a fair table in the As- 
sembly House," to be read at the beginning and 
dissolving of every session, to be also displayed 
" in every common hall of justice within this prov- 
ince," and to be read four times a year before the 
people. 

From the date of the Concessions (1676) until 
the meeting of the first Legislature, November 25, 
1681, West Jersey was governed by proprietary 
commissioners, who were clothed with ample 
powers of administration. The ship " Kent," with 
two hundred and thirty passengers, among whom 
were the commissioners, arrived at Sandy Hook 
and later entered the Delaware, proceeding slow- 
ly northward to the site of Burlington, at which 
place settlement was made in the autumn of 1677. 
Governor Andros, in New York, while claiming 
a tentative supervision over the West Jersey 
colony, promised aid in securing the acknowledg- 
ment of the rights of the colonists. 

In 1677 and 1678 new shiploads of emigrants 
arrived, occupying the "1st" and "2d" "Tenths" 
between the Rancocas River and the Assanpink 
Creek — substantially the river front of the old 
County of Burlington. So intent were the mem- 
.§0ciety upon their immediate affairs 




.-\^'»^^vvvi.'»W**"' 



THE OM» CONOVKK OK WKSI IMH SI NEAR MATAWAN. 
1 Built »b<.ot 1700.) 



ONY AND AS A STATE 153 

that no attention was paid to John Fenwick and 
his efforts to colonize Salem. 

Unquestionably the most noteworthy event of 
the period of the commissioners' government was 
a second grant made by the Duke of York, con- 
veying the soil and government of West Jersey to 
William Penn, Edward Byllynge, Gawen Lawry, 
Nicholas Lucas, John Eldridge, of St. Paul's, Shad- 
well, in the County Of Middlesex, tanner, and Ed- 
mond Warner, citizen, of London. The date of this 
grant was August 6, 1680. Eldridge and Warner 
had by this time become possessed of the Fenwick 
interest, thus making them parties to the deed. 
This grant conveyed the free use of all bays, riv- 
ers, and waters for navigation, fishing, free trade, 
or otherwise. 

For some time, in spite of the protestations of 
the New Jersey commissioners, the agents of the 
Duke of York had endeavored to collect duties 
upon the Delaware. That his claim to govern- 
ment in West Jersey was partially recognized is 
shown by a lease executed for Matiniconk Island, 
near Burlington, from the duke to Robert Stacy, 
one of the commissioners. In 1679 certain Eng- 
lish settlers petitioned for lands near Trenton, 
" willing to become Tennants to his Highness the 
Duke of Yourke," while two years previously com- 
missions for the magistrates of West Jersey had 
been issued from New York, both for the " upper 



154 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




plantations " at Burlington and the " lower plan- 
tations " at Salem. By the grant, however, the 
Duke of York formally disallowed his pretensions, 
particularly as the eminent lawyer. Sir William 
Jones, to whom the matter had been referred, ad- 
vised that the duke had no right to make demands 
upon the inhabitants in question. 

In the meantime affairs in Carteret's portion 
of the province, East Jersey, were tending toward 
a peaceful settlement of the agrarian troubles. 
By 1675 the Legislature had passed an act pro- 
viding that all actions brought to recover the 
price of goods or labor employed in provincial de- 
fense, from 1670 to 1673, should be abolished. A 
free pardon was extended to those taking part in 
the rebellion, while heavy punishments were di- 
rected to be imposed upon those who reviled or 
^upbraided their opponents. It was recommended 
in the statute that the past " be buried in obliv- 
ion." This was followed in 1675 by the prescrip- 
tion of the oath of fidelity to the Lord Proprietor 
and an oath of allegiance to the King, the sub- 
criber forswearing the temporal power, actual 
or assumed, of the Church of Rome. Until the 
stablishment of the West Jersey Legislature the 
ast Jersey Assembly met at various times in 
lizabethtown. New Piscataqua, and Middletown. 
the sessions of the body were mainly devoted to 



EAST AND WRfiT JERBEY lH 1677. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 155 

the passing of laws relative to the social and 
economic conditions of the whole province. 

The struggle of the Duke of York for power in 
America and the forceful attitude of East Jersey 
were the immediate causes of a political struggle 
between Governor Andros and Governor Car- 
teret. Filled with zeal for his ducal master, An- 
dros upon the 13th of March, 1679-80, addressed 
a proclamation commanding Philip Carteret and 
his " pretended " provincial ofiQcials to forbear as- 
suming or exercising any jurisdiction in East Jer- 
sey. To this Carteret at once replied that he and 
the country were prepared to defend themselves, 
" which if any Blood be shed, it will be contrary 
to our desires, and the just and righteous God 
require it at your Hands, who are the Causes 
thereof." 

Upon the 7th of April Governor Andros with 
his council appeared in Elizabethtown, where, aft- 
er the exchange of formal compliments, many of 
the respective adherents being armed, both sides 
presented their claims to jurisdiction. Upon the 
1st of May Governor Andros issued a warrant 
for Governor Carteret's arrest, which was exe- 
cuted by an armed posse of soldiers, who took the 
chief executive of East Jersey to New Y^'ork, where 
he was imprisoned until May 27. Charged with 
persistently, riotously, and routously endeavoring 
to maintain the exercise of jurisdiction within 



156 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

the bounds of the Duke of York's grant, Carteret 
maintained his right in refusing to submit to ar- 
rest or to surrender his government without the 
King's command, and protested against the 
jurisdiction of a court where the accuser and im- 
prisoner was also his judge. The jury refused to 
convict, after several reconsiderations, and Car- 
teret returned to New Jersey under pledge not 
to exercise his jurisdiction until the whole mat- 
ter had been submitted to the King. 

The early days of the month of June were spent 
by Governor Andros in consultation with the New 
Jersey Assembly, delegates being present from 
Newark, Elizabethtown, Bergen, Middletown, 
Shrewsbury, Piscataway, and Woodbridge. The 
assemblymen were civil but firm, and in a manner 
bowed to the will of the governor of New York, 
submitting to him the laws in force, with an ex- 
pression of hopefulness that the beneficial terms 
of the fundamental law of the province would not 
be altered. It was further claimed that no con- 
firmation was required as to previous acts, be- 
cause such were done under lawful authority. 
After some further show of right, the case of Gov- 
ernor Carteret having been kept in suspense in 
England, the Duke of York released to Sir George 
Carteret, grandson and heir of the original pro- 
prietor, all of the duke^s claim or title to East 
Jersey. A letter from the Duke of York further 



ONY AND AS A STATE 157 



denied that he had given Andros any authority 
over the Carteret province, whereupon Governor 
Andros departed for England. For a year there 
followed discussion and bitterness between Gov- 
ernor Carteret and Anthony Brockholst, acting 
governor of New York in the place and stead of 
Governor Andros. 

Acting under the direction of Lady Elizabeth 
Carteret, widow and executrix of Sir George Car- 
teret, who had died in 1680, Governor Carteret, on 
July 22, 1681, laid claim to Staten Island as with- 
in the jurisdiction of New Jersey, and demanded 
possession thereof from the governor of New 
York. He also issued a proclamation to the in- 
habitants of Staten Island directing them to for- 
bear yielding obedience to the government of 
Brockholst. Each governor in turn then denied 
the authority of the other. From this quarrel 
Philip Carteret turned to his Assembly, which 
convened at Elizabeth in October. A bitter con- 
test ensued, some idea of which may be gained 
from this message sent to the governor and the 
council by the house : 

It is the Opinion of this House that wee ai-e now abojit QSfP^ 
and the Countreys businesae. everything is beautif ull in his season, 
this house expects those Acts already before you should be passed 
and returned back to this house. 



To this the governor and council made reply : 

True wisdome would teach you better manners than to Stile- 





>t KNK ON THE H 



158 NEW JEKSEY AS A COL 

Yo'selves the Generall Assembly. Doubtlesse there was no want of 
Ignorance and Disloyalty where this Bratt had its educac'on inso- 
much as that the generall assembly consists of the Governor Councell 
and Deputies, ergo, the Deputies no generall assembly. It was 
Lucifer's Pride that putt him upon settling himselfe where God 
never intended to sett him and his Presimiption produced or was 
forerunner of his fall. . . . Everything being beautifull in its 
season and soe we bid you farewell. 

Thus was dissolved the last Assembly under the 
administration of Governor Carteret. 

The death of Sir George Carteret threw upon 
Lady Elizabeth Carteret the administration of the 
province of East Jersey. The proprietors' inter- 
est, however, under his will was devised to eight 
trustees, acting for the benefit of his creditors, 
who attempted a sale of the province either pri- 
vately or publicly. The extension of the plan 
to establish a wider American influence for the 
Society of Friends led William Penn and eleven 
associates to purchase East Jersey for £3,400, the 
indenture being dated February 1, 1681-82. The 
grantors were Lady Carteret and eight trustees. 

The twelve grantees, most of whom were of 
Quaker yeoman stock, were William Penn, of 
Warminghurst, Sussex; Robert West, of Middle 
Temple, London; Thomas Rudyard, of London; 
Samuel Groome, of Stepney Parish, Middlesex, 
mariner; Thomas Hart, of Enfield, Middlesex, 
merchant; Richard Mew, of Stepney Parish, mer- 
chant; Thomas Wilcox, of London, goldsmith; 



ONY AND AS A STATE 159 

Ambrose Bigg, of Catton Place, Surrey; John 
Heywood, of London, skinner; Hugh Hartshorn, 
of London, skinner; Clement Plumstead, of Lon- 
don, draper; and Thomas Cooper, of London, mer- 
chant tailor. 

On the 1st of June, 1682, the twelve proprietors 
executed a deed to prevent the benefit of survivor- 
ship, while early in March of the same year Will- 
iam Penn purchased all of Major John Fenwick's 
claims to any right, title, and interest in West Jer- 
sey. A secretary and receiver-general of the prov- 
ince were selected, while Robert Barclay of the 
proprietors was commissioned governor for life. 
The twelve proprietors immediately associated 
with themselves twelve others, creating twenty- 
four shares. Thomas Wilcox disposed of his en- 
tire interest. 

The new associates were James, Earl of Perth; 
John Drummond, of Lundy; Robert Barclay, of 
Urie; David Barclay, Jr., of Urie; Robert Gordon, 
of Cluny; Arent Sonmans, of Wallingford, all of 
the Kingdom of Scotland; Gawen Lawry, of Lon- 
don, merchant; Edward Byllynge, of Westmins- 
ter; James Braine, of London, merchant; William 
Gibson, of London, haberdasher; Thomas Barker, 
of London, merchant; and Robert Turner and 
Thomas Warne, of Dublin, merchants. To these 
twenty-four proprietors the Duke of York, upon 
the 14th of March, 1682-83, confirmed the sale 




GREAT SEAL OF 1691. 



160 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

the province by a grant of the most explicit terms, 
while upon the 23d of November, 1683, King 
Charles II formally recognized the proprietors' 
right to soil and government. 

The interest reawakened in the British Isles 
over the New Jersey project was highly stimulated 
by the diverse interests of the men composing the 
board. There were members of the Society of 
Friends, Dissenters, and Papists, " a strange com- 
mingling of religious professions and characters," 
a small but highly influential Scotch minority 
exercising potential influence in the upbuilding 
of East Jersey, particularly in Monmouth County. 

Although Governor Barclay did not come to 
America, he sent in his place Thomas Eudyard, a 
lawyer of prominence, who, arriving in the prov- 
ince in November, 1682, assembled his council and 
in March, 1683, met his Assembly. Owing to dif- 
ferences with the proprietors as to the laying out 
of land he gave place to Gawen Lawry, who 
brought to East Jersey the " Fundamental Con- 
stitutions " adopted by the proprietors in 1683. 
The " Fundamental Concessions " were far from 
being a model frame of government, although 
they met with much approval from the pro- 
prietary board. The administration of public 
affairs was to be vested in the twenty-four proprie- 
tors or their proxies, with one hundred and forty- 
four representatives of the people. An elector 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



161 



was required to hold fifty acres of ground, of 
wWch ten should be cultivated, or, if living in 
"Boroughs," a house and three acres, or, if he 
hired his house and land, to have fifty pounds in 
stock. Names of candidates were to be written on 
parchment, and fifty drawn from a box " by a Boy 
under Ten years of Age," further selection being 
made by lot. Persons guilty of sexual immorality, 
and drunkenness, or one " who is Insolvent or a 
Fool " were ineligible for nomination. 

Of the great council four committees were de- 
signed to be chosen : on " Publick Policy and to 
look to Manners, Education, and Arts," on " Trade 
and Management of the publick Treasury," on 
" Plantations and regulating of all Things, as well 
as deciding all Controversies relating to them," 
and on " the Preservation of the Publick Peace." 
The latter committee was designed, undoubtedly, 
to meet the situation of many of the proprietors 
and some of the settlers, who " for conscience 
sake " were debarred from bearing arms, a large 
proportion of these being members of the Society 
of Friends. Various provisions were made for the 
police affairs of the province, as well as for the ad- 
justment of proprietary interests, while religious 
liberty was allowed. All officers were required 
to "profess Faith in C/iris/-Jesus," but liberty 
was not to permit such license as atheism, cursing. 




It, AG OF THE THIRTEEN 
COLONIES. 



162 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




DONGAN ARMS. 



murder, " or indulging themselves in Stage Plays, 
Masks, Revells, or such like abuses." 

But the "Fundamental Constitutions" were lim- 
ited in their operation to those who would submit 
to a resurvey and approval of their several grants, 
arrange for the payment of quit-rents, and agree 
to pass an act for the permanent support of the 
government. All others were to be ruled by the 
" Concessions," a dual form of government, the 
futility of which Governor Lawry recognized, 
and, discreetly restraining the publication of the 
" Fundamental Constitutions," the remarkable 
production became a mere documentary curiosity. 
Lawry under his " Instructions " performed two 
duties of far greater service to the province: by 
winning the good will of the Indians and culti- 
vating the friendship of Governor Dongan, of New 
York. Nor was the governor less solicitous con- 
cerning the establishment of Perth Town, so- 
called in honor of the Earl of Perth, at Amboy 
Point. Already a few of the twenty-four houses 
of the proprietors were in course of erection while 
he directed that the seat of government be re- 
moved there at once. 

The subdivision of proprietary rights and the 
arrival in America of those having landed inter- 
ests led to the creation of the East Jersey " Board 



of Proprietors " upon 



August 



1, 1684. To this 



board, acting for all the proprietors, was granted 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



163 



the power of approving the acts of the Assembly, 
adjusting quit- rent disputes between early settlers 
and the proprietors, advancing the interests of the 
town of Perth, clearing Indian titles, to " sett 
out Land upon rent," defining the East and West 
Jersey boundary line, and securing funds to pay 
certain current debts. 

The beginnings of West Jersey, following the 
session of the first Legislature in 1681, were 
marred by but few disturbances, the most note- 
worthy being between West Jersey and the new 
Pennsylvania government concerning the owner- 
ship of islands in the Delaware Kiver. Burlington 
was made the capital of the province, with courts 
there established and at Salem. Deputy Governor 
Samuel Jenings, representing Edward Byllynge, 
the proprietary governor, arrived in September, 
1681, and with his council and Assembly formed 
the General Assembly of West Jersey. The old 
question of title and government having been pre- 
sented to the Assembly in May, 1683, it was de- 
cided that both were purchased by William Penn 
and his associates, whereupon the Assembly, fear- 
ing that Byllynge might remove his deputy gov- 
ernor, elected Jenings to that position, renewing 
the assertion of popular rights. To confirm his 
election and consult with Byllynge Goj££iior Jen- 
ings and associates Avere sent to J^ngland, while 
Thomas Ollive, speaker of the fir^t House.j3if-.As- 





GOVERNOR DONOAN 8 H< 
8TATKN 18LAND. 



164 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



^fVT, > 




JAMES II. 



sembly, was temporarily chosen as deputy gov- 
ernor. In accordance with the methods of arbi- 
tration employed by the Society of Friends the 
Byllynge-Jenings dispute was submitted to the 
" judgment and determination " of George Fox 
and other Friends of great influence. The award 
of October, 1684, by eight of the fourteen referees, 
was to the effect that Byllynge was governor, and 
that no authority existed for the General Assem- 
bly to choose a chief executive. 

Charles II, King of England, died in the month 
of May, 1685, his successor to the throne being 
his brother James, Duke of York, under the title 
of James II. From the first it had been the pur- 
pose of James II to concentrate his power in 
America, to eliminate as far as possible popular 
government, and to make the colonies absolute 
dependencies. While this policy had been has- 
tened by the revocation by Charles II of the 
' Massachusetts charter, it had for the time been re- 
tarded by the risings in Scotland and the rebellion 
In Monmouth, England. Instituting quo war- 
ranto proceedings in the English courts to cancel 
the charters of East Jersey, West Jersey, Dela- 
ware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, he assigned 
to Sir Edmund Andros the difficult duty of uniting 
these colonies and establishing a centralized gov- 
ernment. A vice-regalty was to be established in 
America, and upon the 11th of August, 1688, in 



James II, 6. Oct. 15, 18.33, the second surviving son of 
Charles I; recognized as Duke of York in 1C60; ascended 
the throne in 1085; d. Sept. G, 1701. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 165 

New York, Andros entered upon his task, as bold- 
ly conceived as it was hopelessly unsuccessful. 

The contention of New York in urging the an- 
nexation of East Jersey was the refusal of the 
province to pay customs duties, that merchants 
were attracted thither by good land and Indian 
trade, that privateers found safe anchorage and 
good market within Sandy Hook, and that, unless 
under the government of New York, both prov- 
inces would be unprotected in case of war. The 
East Jersey proprietors, in June, 1687, replied 
that their land had been purchased from Sir 
George Carteret and from the Indians, and that 
the duties levied in New Y^'ork were based upon 
the acts of the Legislature of that province, in 
which body East Jersey was not represented and 
consequently not bound. In conclusion the pro- 
prietors, to avoid further difficulties, prayed to be 
annexed to West Jersey, that the King select a 
governor from among the proprietors, and that an 
officer be appointed in the province to collect cus- 
toms. 

The conflicting proprietary interests, and the 
persistence of King James II in attempting to 
annex the Jerseys to New York, led the pro- 
prietors of both provinces in April, 1688, to 
offer a surrender of their rights of govern- 
ment with the view of obtaining from the 
King a reconfirmation of the soil. The two 





GREAT SEAL OK JAMES II. 



166 



NEW JEESEY AS A COL 




WILLIAM III. 



provinces were annexed to New York, and a new 
commission was issued to Governor Andros, who 
proclaimed his government in Burlington and 
Perth Amboy. But his official tenure was as lim- 
ited as it was nominal. Following the short ad- 
ministration of Lord Neill Campbell, Andrew 
Hamilton, agent of the proprietors and a mer- 
chant of London, was commissioned deputy gov- 
ernor, his commission being confirmed by Govern- 
or Barclay in August, 1687. Between Hamilton 
and the New York authorities there was friction, 
growing out of religious dissension as well as po- 
litical and territorial quarrels. The abrogation of 
the test oath in America, proclaimed by Governor 
Andros, created a vast stir among the Scotch Cal- 
vinists. New England Congregationalists, and 
French Huguenots, particularly in East Jersey. 
The liberty of conscience meant advancement of 
Roman Catholics; that in turn meant collusion 
with the French in Canada, and finally the de- 
struction of England's power in America — a non 
sequitur as common in colonial as in modern po- 
litical argument. Suddenly William of Orange 
appeared in Devon at the head of his secretly ar- 
ranged expedition, and under Whig inspiration, 
King James II having fled, championed the cause 
of English liberty and became King William III. 
During the short administration of Governor 
Andros, or until he was driven from New York, 



William HI, posthumous sou ot William II, of Orange ; 
6. Nov. 4, 1650 ; proclaimed, with Mary, King, Feb. 13, 
1689 ; d. March 8, 1702. 



.oi'l! 



SIK KDMUNI) ANDKOkS 

Louden, Dev. >;. UVSI ; succeeded 
tather as bailiff of (iuein.ey Island 1674 

Ajxpomted goveruor of province of New 
Voi'lv 1H7J: and acquired title of "tyrant ''• 
deposed Philip C^irteret as uovern..!- of East 
.rei-spv 1«;80; recalled KISL. 

Apj)oiut<Hl governor-oenerai of New En^- 
].ni.i KISO; Ne^y ,,j.]. .^j,,| j^^^^ Jerse^'v 
added to his jurisdicLion LG88; imprisoued 
April 18, 1089; governor of Virginia 1(;<)2- 
J>N ; u . > vernor of G ; , 'i-nsey 1704-00. 

i >ied LoHdon, J'\\i. 24, 1714. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 167 

Governor Hamilton was in frequent consultation 
witli the New York authorities. The conferences 
ending in doubt, Governor Hamilton repaired to 
England, but on the high seas was captured by 
the French. From this period until 1G92 East 
Jersey was governed largely by her local officers. 
After 1685 the political history of West Jersey 
was uneventful, a new deputy governor, John 
Skene, exercising his authority according to popu- 
lar will. Byllynge dying in 1687, his interests be- 
came vested by his heirs in Dr. Daniel Coxe, 
court physician and a large proprietor. Assuming 
the title to land and power to govern in West Jer- 
sey, Dr. Coxe, upon March 4, 1691, transferred to 
the West Jersey Society — a land purchasing cor- 
poration — all his rights to his American lands. 
This included a vast acreage in East Jersey, West 
Jersey, two hundred thousand acres in Minnisink, 
Merrimack lands in New Hampshire, and ten 
thousand acres in Pennsylvania, the deed also 
mentioning a " pottery house " in Burlington, 
town lots in Perth Amboy, Gloucester, and Egg 
Harbor, and lands in Cape May and Maurice Riv- 
er. He also conveyed to the West Jersey Society 
the right of government, which effectually settled, 
in name at least, the long contest concerning the 
matter. In 1692 the society made an agreement to 
further the interests of its project in colonization 
and fostering trade, although little was done, and 



168 



NEW JEESEY AS A COL 




the subsequent surrender of the provinces to the 
crown put a quietus upon all future efforts. In 
1688 the Council of Proprietors of West Jersey, 
similar to the board in East Jersey, was finally 
organized. 

Owing to uncertain descriptions, faulty survey- 
ing, and conflicting claims the disputed boundary 
lines between East Jersey and New York and fiast 
Jersey and West Jersey received official attention. 
In 1686 a council was held to determine the East 
Jersey-New York line, but no settlement was 
reached beyond locating the terminal points on 
the Hudson and Delaware. The question was not 
settled for a century. The East and West Jersey 
governments agreed in 1686 to submit their line 
to arbitration, after a failure of George Keith, 
surveyor of East Jersey, to locate the line accord- 
ing to the quintipartite deed of 1676. Keith ran 
the line from Egg Harbor to the Karitan, when the 
loud protests of West Jersey, claiming that East 
Jersey received too much land, caused him to de- 
sist. Later consultations were held on the mat- 
ter, until in 1718 an act was passed by the Legis- 
lature establishing the line. 

In the settlement of the Jerseys tracts and 
monographs played an important part in inducing 
emigration. Of these, relating distinctively to 
East and West Jersey, the first and one of the 
arest — for they are all rare in the originals — is a 



SEAL 01'' XliW YUKK IJJ 1686. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 169 



single folio leaf issued by John Fenwick in 1675. 
In 1682 the East Jersey proprietors published a 
small quarto of eight pages, and in 1683 the 
Scotch proprietors printed a quarto of double the 
size, each giving a similar description of East Jer- 
sey. These are known as the " Brief Accounts," 
from the introductory words of their title pages. 
In 1684 appeared "The Planters' Speech," ad- 
dressed to friends in East Jersey, West Jersey, and 
Pennsylvania, which was more of a moral disser- 
tation than a description of the provinces. The 
author is unknown. In rapid succession followed 
George Scot's " Model of the Government of the 
Province of East New Jersey in America " and 
Thomas Budd's " Good Order Established in Penn- 
sylvania and New Jersey in America," both of 
which were printed in 1685. As descriptions of 
the economic conditions of the provinces the 
" Model " and " Good Order " are of the highest 
value. In 1698 there was published Gabriel 
Thomas's entertaining " An Historical Descrip- 
tion of the Province and Country of West New 
Jersey in America," while in 1699 two pamphlets 
dealing with the Byllynge-Jenings controversy 
were printed in Philadelphia. From time to time 
letters from the settlers and documents dealing 
with the Fenwick controversy were issued in 
London. 

It was not until the eighteenth century that 



170 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

the most valuable works relating to East and 
West Jersey came from the press. In 1747 the 
so-called Elizabethtown " Bill in Chancery," pre- 
pared by the famous James Alexander, was pub- 
lished. This was the suit instituted by the East 
Jersey proprietors against the Nicolls claimants, 
known as the " Clinker Lot Right Men." The title 
page of the " Bill " justly says : " These Papers 
will give a better Light into the History and Con- 
stitution of New Jersey than any Thing hitherto 
published." An " Answer " prepared by William 
Livingston, afterward the Revolutionary War 
governor of New Jersey, and William Smith, after- 
ward chief justice of Canada, published in 1752, 
gives " a Great Deal of the Controversy, Though 
Much Less of the History and Constitution of New 
Jersey than the said Bill." The matter was never 
finally determined. 

During the progress of the French and Indian 
War the various " original constitutions," acts of 
Assembly under proprietary Legislatures, and 
many state papers were printed under the direc- 
tion of a legislative committee. The work was 
issued in 1758, and is known as the " Grants and 
Concessions," the compilation being ascribed to 
Aaron Leaming and Jacob Spicer, of Cape May, 
who were members of the committee. As a refer- 
ence book the " Grants and Concessions " is only 
exceeded in value by Samuel Smith's " History of 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



171 



the Colony of Nova Csesarea or New Jersey," o-iy- 
ing a particular account of the settlement of the 
Jerseys from the beginning until 1721. Smith's 
history was published in 1765. 




g. 9tLLU''B BASI iLiT Or 11W. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Settlers of East Jersey 



To THE province of East Jersey the 
settlers brought a strong spirit of 
political and religious independ- 
ence. Whether they came from 
Massachusetts, the Connecticut 
Valley, from the " shore " communities of Long Is- 
land, or from the Calvinistic centers of England 
and Scotland, they were filled with that mighty 
purpose to create in the new land a government 
where political righteousness should guide the 
course of the State. In this effort, as in all at- 
tempts to establish a community upon the teach- 
ings of a given creed, there was a tendency toward 
political dogmatism. In nearly all the East Jer- 
sey towns political preferment was based upon 
strict adherence to the teachings of a particular 
religious society, while the settlers of Newark 
went so far as to provide that only those who were 
members of a Congregational church should be 
allowed to hold ofQce and vote. 

While this restrictive action may be subjected 
to criticism, it was quite in accord with the spirit 
of the age. Most of the influential men of East 
Jersey had experienced the wave of religious en- 
thusiasm which had swept over England and 
Scotland, upon the coming of Cromwell, and 
which flooded New England with high resolve 
and concomitant austerity. It had Ijjeen fttime 
of religious controversy, and of thl$^ establish- 



-Hiiy 



THE " MAYFLOWER. 



176 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




ment of new forms of religious belief. Nor was 
the spirit less noticeable in West Jersey, where 
the Society of Friends did not outwardly declare 
the union of church and State, but where the pow- 
er of the meeting to make the careers of men was 
equally potent. 

The English speaking colonists of East 
Jersey, in the main, were of yeoman stock. 
Various motives underlay the action of the 
settlers. The return of the House of Stu- 
art to power, with the reestablishment of a 
dissolute court and the general popular reaction 
from the social, political, and ecclesiastical se- 
verities of the Cromwellian movement, gave to the 
majority of the new comers sufficient excuse for 
leaving England. Others from New England 
hoped to find in East Jersey a land more hospita- 
ble, where the power of the church might be 
further extended. Some were moved by an evan- 
gelical spirit, wishing to convert the Indian and 
stablish their faith in a land beyond the sea; 
©thers dimly saw that there might grow up power- 
ful dependencies of the crown in which a certain 
religious faith would be dominant, while a small 
number were moved by a restlessness, and gave 
religious p^rs(ecutions as an excuse for a life of ad- 
V|enture and, mayhap, of profit. 

But over all and under all ran the spirit of 
cracy, which entered into the daily acts of the 



"v^ 



V — - 



THE " NTW N( I UERLAND." 



ONY AND AS A STATE I77 

entire body of emigration. The rigidity of tlie 
local laws, the strictness of church discipline, the 
slowness of assimilation with the Dutch, who, in 
creed, were with them but not of them, the intense 
striving for a theocratic commonwealth, gave a 
harshness to life, but it likewise gave a stability 
to East Jersey that has been permanent through- 
out all the modifications of government and the 
later injection of cosmopolitan social elements. 

But one instance need be cited to show the 
distinctively Calvinistic type of early East Jer- 
sey life. It is in the matter of personal nomen- 
clature. To East Jersey the settlers from New 
and Old England brought Christian names indic- 
ative of a Puritan and in some cases Quaker an- 
cestry. Among ancient deeds and wills are to 
be found some curiosities of " given names " 
which descendants have carried down to dis- 
tant generations. Thus in the family of Lippin- 
cotts, of Shrewsbury, in 1683, were living Free- 
dom, Remembrance, and Restore. Jedediah Allen, 
who lived near by, in Neversink, had among his 
children Experience, Ephraim, Judah, and Pa- 
tience, while in 1688, in that portion of Monmouth 
County, resided Exercis, probably a corrupt spell- 
ing of Exercise, and Elisone Coale, daughters of 
Jacob. Among the names of women appear Sy- 
biah Dennis, Faith Hewitt, in 1691, and Safty 
(Safety) Grover, the latter a daughter of James, 



DUTCH COUMK^ lEol'LE. 



178 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




of Middletown. In 1697 there was Hope Bloom- 
field, of Woodbridge; in 1701, Eupham, wife of 
John Johnston, of Monmouth County, and Bethiah 
Kitchell, daughter of William, whose home, in 
1683, was in Newark. In 1694 Hephziabiah Man- 
nin, of Piscataway, was the widow of one of the 
plantation owners, and in 1697 Tidey buried her 
husband, George Warren, of Elizabethtown. Com- 
fort was the wife of Samuel Marsh, of Bahway, 
while Deliverance is mentioned as a daughter of 
John Throgmorton, of Middletown. 

Among the children of Thomas Thomson, of 
Elizabeth, in 1675, were Aaron, Moses, and Hur. 
In 1669 Hopewell Hull was a settler in Wood- 
bridge; Dishturner Ward appears in Newark in 
1696; and in 1694 Barefoot Brynson is alluded to 
as a son of Daniel. In 1682, or shortly thereafter, 
occurred the marriage of Nidemiah Sanford, 
daughter of William, to Eichard Berry, son of 
John Berry. The respective fathers presented to 
the young couple as wedding gifts several slaves. 
John Berry had, among other children. Peregrine 
and Grace. 

An examination of Christian names throughout 
this period shows the strong influence of Biblical 
nomenclature. Aside from these somewhat ec- 
centric designations appear a host of names still 
common. Except in a few cases, those of distinct- 



THK BRADFORD HOVBR AT PLYMOCTU. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 179 



ivelj Norman-French origin, and not found in the 
Old and New Testaments, are extremely rare. 

Toward the close of the seventeenth century 
there came into East Jersey, and to a limited de- 
gree in West Jersey, particularly in Salem, a new 
and valuable racial element. This was the French 
Huguenot, who, bringing to the eastern division 
the faith of Calvin, found, at least, a community 
of religious interest among the English and 
Scotch. 

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis 
XIV, in 1685, drove from France no less than half 
a million Protestants, who, under the name of 
Huguenots, sought in other lands that freedom 
of conscience denied them in their own country. 
So bitter was the persecution that by 1705, it is 
said, there was not an organized Huguenot con- 
gregation in all France. 

To these people, many of whom were of the an- 
cient nobility and nearly all of eminent respecta- 
bility, the English colonies in America opened an 
avenue of escape from the rigors of the govern- 
mental inquiry and persecution. To nearly every 
seaport between Nova Scotia and Florida they 
came, many selecting New York and some Phila- 
delphia as their new homes. From these centers 
the movements of population carried certain of 
these French families to New Jersey. By 1686, 
and even earlier, Huguenot family names appear 



jcfct^-s^^^^ 



180 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




BOUDtNOT ARM> 



in the towns of the Monmouth shore. With their 
coming a new element appeared in the provinces — 
an element which was so distinctively Eomance 
as to make its presence among settlers of Ger- 
manic stock as picturesque as it was valuable. 

With but few exceptions the Huguenot had no 
political ambitions, or at least had not in the 
early years of the eighteenth century. He spoke 
not the language of his new home. Around him 
lay restraints in his advancement in the political 
state, which a new generation did not overcome. 
Yet the Huguenot social and moral influence was 
early patent and has remained a power until the 
present day. 

To New Jersey came Antoine Pintard, Peter 
Bard, Pierre le Conte, Joseph Ray, Ives Ballinger, 
Elias Boudinot, and Hyppolite le Fever, names 
with which one could conjure in either East or 
West Jersey. There, too, were the De la Fon- 
taines, the Stelles, Monsieur Hance, Jaques la 
Rue, the De Cous, John de la Valle, and the 
Demarests, some of whom, forgotten, some remem- 
bered, have impressed themselves and their fam- 
ilies upon the history of New Jersey. 

Too few in number, too weak to sustain racial 
customs or language, the children of the original 
emigrants contracted marriages among those not 
of distinctively French ancestry. In a few in- 
stances the Huguenot blood remained unmixed 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



181 



until the Kevohitiou, yet in the general breaking 
down of social lines following the war even this 
characteristic became lost. No trace of any 
French words which may have been contributed 
to the English language, as used in New Jersey, 
remains. 

The influence of the Huguenots in New Jersey is 
subjective rather than objective. They stimulated 
the growth of the Protestant, particularly the 
Presbyterian churches in East Jersey, most of the 
Huguenots in West Jersey attaching themselves 
to Saint Mary's at Burlington or joining the So- 
ciety of Friends. As large landowners, possessed 
of personal estate embracing objects of value, 
with artistic taste, they brought new refinements 
to America, and gave to their children a love for 
the beautiful — a sentiment in which the, English 
were often lacking, by reason of environment, or 
which, if present, was suppressed on account of 
the severity of religious discipline. But standing 
clear and distinct against the early colonial hori- 
zon, the Huguenot star shines brightly, but under 
the later glow of the sun of English influence it 
merges into the greater glory. -Yet the star 
dimmed remains in its courses, even while the sun . 
stands in meridian. 



^ 



w 






>■ o « 



CHAPTEK IX 

The Settlers of West Jersey 



THE close of the seventeenth century 
in England was marked, in one re- 
spect, by a widespread interest con- 
cerning colonial affairs. The age of 
fable touching the mother country's 
transatlantic possessions, when effort was made 
to find the palm-crowned isles of the Indies at the 
headwaters of the Hudson, Delaware, Susque- 
hanna, and James Rivers, or to seek for gold in 
Virginia or silver in Massachusetts, had given 
place to a period when sober, common sense was 
asserting itself. Peace reigned in England, and 
rural and municipal industries were thriving to 
the degree that the problem of congestion of popu- 
lation in great centers was a factor in social life. 
Charles II as prodigal with his favors of land 
grants to his adherents as he was of money to the 
beauties of his court, had already granted New 
Jersey to Carteret and Berkeley, as well as Penn- 
sylvania to William Penn. Having thus dis- 
charged his debts, he left to the proprietors the 
burden of peopling their domains, and of provid- 
ing fit and proper governments for their lands 
oversea. To accomplish these ends the owners 
of New Jersey and Pennsylvania were most active. 
Although Carteret and Berkeley's interests be- 
came lodged in proprietary boards, and Penn's 
estate was managed by agents, the British Isles, 
and indeed most of Eastern Europe, rang with the 





186 



NEW JEIISEY AS A COL 



advantages of Pennsylvania and the Jerseys as a 
place where man could find health and liberty 
and the enjoyment of perfect happiness. Pam- 
phlets, tracts, circulars, broadsides, and volumes 
of merit spread the gospel of colonization. 

But it was West Jersey that offered to the 
prospective settler the rarest advantages. The 
Delaware, open to the sea, and suitable for the 
largest ships and the upbuilding of trade, received 
many tributary streams, sluggish and shallow, 
whose banks were loamy and fertile. Undeniably 
was it true that the low and easily tilled plains 
which swept eastward and southward from the 
Delaware, the short winters and long, hot sum- 
mers, and the supply of timber made life less rig- 
orous along the Delaware than it was on the banks 
of the rivers emptying into New York Bay. To 
the southward were the tidal meadows covered 
with sea fowl, in the forests game in such abun- 
dance that no man need starve. To the settler were 
such alluring prospects held out, coupled with the 
assurance of a stable, democratic form of govern- 
ment. 

The towns upon the Delaware and its streams 
sprang into being under the advent of a body of 
settlers whose customs, modes of life, and desires 
were directed toward a common object. The 

uaker broug ht to West Jersey a steadfast pur- 
pose, rt'o^'e, niaybe a dream, that the new colony 




ONY AND AS A STATE 187 



would be a model for the world, but, in a land 
of plenty and under the influence of an equitable 
climate, a natural tendency asserted itself. As 
compared with East Jersey, the unconscious but 
constant tendency was to develop along the lines 
of least natural resistance, to use what was pres- 
ent rather than create for the future, and to drift 
into a state of existence of which the motto was 
laissez faire. 

The most characteristic feature of the economic 
development of West Jersey was the establish- 
ment of a land-owning class. Whether or not this 
was designed will probably never be known, but 
certain it is that those who had money or ready 
credit invested heavily, as the records show, in 
real estate. As the ownership of land was, at the 
time, an indication of wealth, the men of the lar- 
gest acreages were given a prominence which nat- 
urally brought with it the best and most profit- 
able relationships in the commercial, political, 
and religious life of the period. The result was 
the formation of a plantation-owning aristocracy, 
which was perpetuated by a certain religious 
tenet. 

It was the rule of the Society of Friends to 
"marry in meeting"; that is the union of a Quaker 
and a Presbyterian or Episcopalian was not only 
discountenanced, but was absolutely forbidden, to 
the degree of religious and social ostracism. Thus 



188 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

it was that a wealthy member of the Society, hav- 
ing a daughter, sought to unite her in marriage to 
some worthy young man of another land-owning 
family, and join the two estates. The result was 
that thousands of acres came into the possession 
of comparatively few families. There grew up a 
social condition not unlike that of tidewater Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, differing, however, in the 
fact that amusements, diversions, and laxities per- 
mitted in the South were absolutely prohibited in 
West Jersey. But in so far that the men became 
wealthy farmers, and owners of saw and grist 
mills, content to secure the luxuries of life from 
city merchants, and to use up at home the prod- 
ucts of their farms, the similarity between West 
Jersey and Virginia or Maryland is perfect. 

Not only were the two Jerseys different in nat- 
ural advantages, but in the political and religious 
concepts of the settlers, although the dominant 
spirit was English, there was marked variation. 
In East Jersey the small towns became stirring 
entities, with an intense individuality. In West 
Jersey the county capitals were surrounded by 
small satellites. The rigors of stern New England 
justice spread terror among offenders of Newark, 
Amboy, and Shrewsbury. In Burlington and 
Salem no public execution, so far as is known, ever 
took place. In the one colony the Calvinistic min- 
isters echoed the thunders from Sinai; the other 



ONY AND AS A STATE 189 

repeated again and again the Sermon on the 
Mount. While the Calvinists cried aloud that 
there should be some who would forever endure 
torment, cursed by original sin, the Quakers bent 
in silent prayer, in the belief that no one who re- 
pented would be lost. One kept the sacred ordi- 
nances; the other threw them all aside. The Cal- 
vinist too often preached the doctrine of lex 
talionis, the Quaker the doctrine of non-resistance. 
One had its paid ministry, with glebe and a highly 
developed organization of its congregations; the 
other had its " accepted ministers," who received 
no pay, and with the elders governed the Society. 
Among the Calvinists there was a democratic 
sentiment, naturally engendered by the virility of 
the faith; among the Quakers a constant bent to- 
ward conservatism, which ultimately served to 
weaken the Society, but which was its earliest and 
greatest source of strength. 

But the religion of neither the Calvinist nor the 
Quaker was an outward garb. With all the fanati- 
cism and uplifting of a dogma there was an in- 
tensity and earnestness about both that made 
their denominational fervor something more than 
a convenience and a mere outward show. At least, 
Calvinist and Quaker had one object in common, 
the stamping upon the individual the full force of 
their religious teaching. This applied equally to 
his domestic or to his political affairs, in which 



190 



NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 



latter phase both faiths tended to strengthen the 
doctrine that the hope of a nation lies in the 
establishment and perpetuation of a Christian 
state. 







AN EARLY FARM SCENE. 



CHAPTER X 

Some Phases of Early Life 



UPON land which, according to the 
economic dictum of the time, was 
mainly, if not entirely, the source 
of material wealth, the settler of 
New Jersey based his hopes of per- 
sonal advancement and the ultimate progress of 
the colony. Thus from the farm sprang the activi- 
ties of the provinces, while toward the fostering 
of agriculture economic legislation, to a limited 
degree, was directed. 

The farmer early became the dominant figure 
in the provinces. Even the town merchants, the 
coastwise traders, or those who made bold but 
limited efforts to transport goods and passengers 
between Philadelphia and New York were farm 
owners or were directly interested in the success 
of crops. Everyone had a knowledge, more or less 
intimate, of agricultural life, while even in such 
towns as Salem, Burlington, Newark, Elizabeth- 
town, and Perth Amboy markets were established 
by law, and the daughters of the aristocracy were 
skilled, if not in farming, at least in a knowledge 
of the products of the fields and the current prices 
for produce. 

But from the beginning a difference between the 
farms of East and West Jersey is noticeable. In 
the eastern division the holdings were smaller, 
except probably among the Dutch, the land being 
more intensely cultivated. This was due some- 



194 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

what to the nature of the soil, and the fact that a 
commercial spirit was more prevalent than in West 
Jersey. In the western division the settlers took up 
large tracts, and through the consolidation of 
estates, owing to intermarriages of members of the 
Society of Friends and a general observance of the 
rule of primogeniture, acre was laid to acre, until 
West Jersey passed under the control of compara- 
tively few families. Consequently the growth of a 
landed aristocracy was a logical conclusion. While 
many of West Jersey's landed proprietors, by their 
interests in timber and in trade, were enabled to 
maintain their estates, others were plunged hope- 
lessly in debt, as the result of improvident and ex- 
pensive methods of cultivation. This condition be- 
came apparent long before theoutbreak of the Revo- 
lutionary War, and caused young men in such fam- 
iliesto" clear" less desirable but cheaper land in the 
" Pines," or to engage in business in Philadelphia. 
But either in East or West Jersey life upon the 
colonial plantation presented hardships of which 
the modern farmer has no realization. In West 
Jersey, along the sea shore, the houses were built 
entirely of wood. Along the shores of Delaware 
Bay and River the homes were frequently of brick, 
most of which were made in America, some, how- 
ever, being imported from England in ship bal- 
last. In the region of the Dutch settlements, in 
fact generally throughout East Jersey, beyond the 



ONY AND AS A STATE 195 



limits of tidewater, stone was used in iiouse con- 
struction, altliough brick was sometimes em- 
ployed. But in all eases the houses were without 
conveniences. Open fires, with wood for fuel, 
roared up vast chimneys, but little heat being re- 
flected into the room. As a consequence the aver- 
age temperature in homes was colder, but the air 
was purer, than to-day. In the kitchen the cook 
stove, the range, or a sanitary system of plumbing 
were unknown. Boiling, frying, and stewing were 
done over or in front of the yawning fireplace. 

In the summer time the kitchen heat was in- 
tense, particularly as the doors and windows of 
rooms were small. To add to the discomfort flies 
and other winged insects had free passage to 
rooms, as screens were not used. At night tallow 
dip and wax candles supplied illumination in the 
homes of the better class, while among the poor 
pine-knots served as agencies of artificial light 

Nor were the remaining portions of the hous 
no matter how attractively described in the 1 
ters and newspaper advertisements of the time, 

^ ^ A NEW JERSEY GENTLEMAN. 

attractive in the modern sense. But few homes 
in all New Jersey could boast carpets, and fewer 
still had wall paper or curtains. In all New Jer- 
sey there was probably not a bathtub. In most 
of the farm houses one room, the " best " or parlor, 
was set aside in stately gloom as a domestic holy 
of holies, to be opened upon occasion of funerals. 




196 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



weddings, and the arrival of notable guests. The 
remaining portions of the house were generally 
used, domestic duties being performed by " re- 
demptioners," slaves, or apprentices, under the 
direction of the mistress or her daughters. 

The education of women was distinctively of a 
domestic character. Rare indeed was the young 
woman of the period who had ever seen a novel; 
had heard music other than the wail of the violin 
at a dance or the high pitched nasal twang of the 
itinerant teacher of singing; or had seen the belles 
of Philadelphia upon Second Street or the beaux 
of New York upon lower Broadway. 

The life upon the farm, as seen from the modern 
view point, was little more than mere existence. 
For men and women, alike, hours of activity were 
regulated largely by the " forwardness " of the 
crops, the longest working hours being during the 
time of planting Indian corn, in May, and the har- 
vesting of grain in June and July. Winter 
brought relief from hard work, but the practice of 
early rising was observed by many throughout 
the year. Benjamin Franklin later collected the 
aphorisms of the farm within the pages of Poor 
Richard's Almanac, a book but little less revered 
than the Bible, but among all the sayings none 
had wider credit than 

Early to bed and early to rise, 

Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. 




COr.OXIAI, PLOW WITH WOODKN MOLDBOARD (1706). 



ONY AND AS A STATE 197 

Among the most cultivated the standard of liv- 
ing had by no means reached the point of modern 
refinement. Throughout both East and West Jer- 
sey the food for every one, masters and servants 
alike, was coarse and limited in variety. Many 
of the vegetables and fruits were either not raised 
or only found upon the tables of the rich. Salted 
meats, fish, and meats, — particularly pork, — with 
fresh deer or bear, plenty of rye bread and milk, 
beans, potatoes, turnips, carrots, and cabbage 
were the staple articles of diet. Butter was rare. 
As a luxury some few families preserved apples 
and peaches in stone jugs, otherwise fruits and 
vegetables were enjoyed only " in season." Rum, 
gin, small beer, metheglin, tea, coffee, and choco- 
late were favorite and in some instances expensive 
drinks. 

Immediately previous to the Eevolution one 
meets a reference to an ice house, but such a lux- 
ury was reserved only for the most luxurious. 
The well, which usually supplied the home with 
water, which was much less used, outwardly or 
inwardly, than at present, served as the refrigera- 
tor. For the family the plantation supplied all 
the wood necessary for fuel. 

Amid so prosaic surroundings there were some 
who revolted. Here and there a young girl must 
needs be disciplined, because she preferred the in- 
dependency of elderly maidenhood, which came at 



198 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




GRINDING CORN. 



twenty-five, rather than marry at sixteen or seven- 
teen and become a matron. In the newspapers 
of the middle of the eighteenth century an occa- 
sional letter from some well meaning plantation 
owner appeared, wherein a Jersey farmer com- 
plains that the young women seek fashion and 
ease rather than the charms of butter making, 
weaving, spinning, and cooking. Some even went 
so far as to be neglectful in preparing with their 
own hands their linen sheets, woolen blankets, and 
flowered counterpanes against their marriage — a 
state of affairs for which the writer was devoutly 
thankful, because no such lapses occurred in his 
day. 

Then, as now, the young men sought careers in 
the merchant marine or in the counting houses of 
the nearby cities. Once more, said the sages of the 
press, by such a course would the province suffer 
in a decrease in population and the best blood be 
drained away from the farms. In view of such 
facts modern argument along the same lines 
presents no novelty. 

Upon the farms local industries came into exist- 
ence, dependent, in their character, upon environ- 
ment. Along the sea coast fish and sea weed were 
used for fertilizing purposes by the more progress- 
ive, while lime was obtained by burning oyster 
and clam shells. The advantages of marl were 
known to the earlier settlers, and small pits were 



ONY AND AS A STATE I99 



opened in Monmouth and Burlington Counties, al- 
though it was not until after the Revolution that 
marl came into general favor. 

Work upon the farm was conducted largely by 
three classes of laborers. There were the slaves 
—both negro and Indian,— the redemptioners, and 
the apprentices. Of these classes the slaves occu- 
pied the lowest social status. Although in New 
Jersey legislation concerning the slaves was less 
rigorous than in the Southern States, the attitude 
of the law makers, representing the trend of popu- 
lar thought, was suflQciently severe to stamp upon 
the negro and Indian peoples all the characteris- 
tics of the peculiar institution. 

The early slave districts can be defined by 
means of wills and newspaper advertisements 
with some degree of accuracy. Among the Dutch 
settlements, and throughout the South Jersey 
plantations, slave owning was more prevalent 
than among the Calvinistic towns of East Jersey. 
Members of the Society of Friends, in spite of the 
uncompromising attitude of John Woolman and 
the protests of the meetings, continued to own 
slaves during the colonial period. The impulse to 
utilize such labor in a region where land was fer- 
tile and easily tilled overrode a moral view. It 
may be said that the members of the Society 
treated their bondmen with consideration, and 



200 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

that manumissions, not only during the lifetime 
of the owner, but by will, were frequent. 

The redemptioner was, to a degree, a social 
anomaly. As indicated by the name, the redemp- 
tioner was an immigrant who, seeking a new home 
on the Western Continent, practically agreed to 
sell himself or herself before leaving a European 
port, the actual sale being made to some purchaser 
upon arrival in America and the money utilized to 
pay for the immigrant's passage over-sea. 

All strata of society were represented among 
the redemptioners, most of whom, in New Jersey, 
were Palatinate Germans, Scotch, English, Irish, 
and Scotch-Irish. Sons of good families, street 
waifs, soldiers of fortune, young girls fresh from 
farms, dissolute women from the purlieus of Lon- 
don and the great cities, some in search of a new 
home, some desiring to reform wayward lives, 
some seeking adventure, were huddled upon ships 
and brought to Philadelphia, New York, Salem, 
Burlington, and Amboy. Once landed, they were 
offered to the highest bidder, placed on show like 
cattle, and hurried off to nearby farms, to become 
assimilated in a population which was yet shifting 
and heterogeneous. The advertisements of these 
sales crowd the columns of the newspapers of the 
day. The boys were " likely " and " willing," the 
girls " hearty " and used to " country work." Here 
and there was one who could serve as a school- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



201 



master, as a " taylor," or as a shoemaker. Others 
there were who had trades, and many were " pock- 
fretten." 

Once in the hands of a new master the life of 
the redemptioner was more distasteful than that 
of the slave. Some owners recognized that their 
tenure over the life and liberty of the redemption- 
er was brief and uncertain, and, moved by selfish 
impulses, cruelly overworked their bondmen. As 
a result the redemptioner often performed more 
degrading labor than the slave, and was treated 
with greater severity. Under such circumstances 
escapes were frequent, the advertisements in the 
newspapers described with great particularity 
the personal appearance and dress of the fugitive. 
Rewards, usually proportioned to the length of 
years the redemptioner had to serve, were offered, 
and from time to time notices appeared in the 
public prints advising those interested that re- 
demptioners had been " taken up " and were held 
in the common jails awaiting proper proofs of 
ownership. 

In the mutations of fortune the positions of mas- 
ter and redemptioner were occasionally reversed. 
Upon completing his time a redemptioner would 
obtain possession of land, and, by successful 
ventures, become a proprietor. His sons would 
marry the daughters of his former master, and 
families in the State trace their genealogies to 




COI.ONIAI. HORi»KHH«'Kt 



202 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




OLD SNUFF BOXES. 



such alliances. Nor was it uncommon for the re- 
demptioner to secure a position in after life as 
one of His Majesty's justices, although he seldom 
aspired to a seat in the House of Assembly or 
hoped for a place in council. 

The indentured servant was sometimes from 
abroad, but usually from the locality in which 
his or her master or mistress lived. Bound 
under agreement to learn a given art, trade, or 
mystery, the bound boy or girl entered a family, 
occupied a better position than that of the slave 
or redemptioner, and, under certain conditions of 
social life, became one of the family. Among the 
Society of Friends many of the sons of the wealthy 
plantation owners were indentured, under an 
economic phase of the religious teachings of the 
-Society, to the effect that every man should 
possess and practice a trade or occupation. Thus 
t was that trained artisans were to be found 
throughout the Quaker settlements of the west- 
ern portion of the province. The same rule to a 
more limited degree was observed in the eastern 
division. 

A map of the early settlements of New Jersey 
would show that few towns were located beyond 
the head of tidewater. Those clustering along the 
banks of the rivers emptying ultimately into New 
York Bay, those on the northern and eastern 
shores of old Monmouth, as well as Cape May, 



ONY AND AS A STATE 203 



Salem, Newton, Burlington, Bordentown, and 
Trenton, were identified to a greater or less degree 
with maritime interests. In every community of 
colonial importance there were ship carpenters. 
Vessel building, at first for the whaling and 
coasting trade and later for West India service, 
was prosecuted with success in spite of acts of 
Parliament restraining trade and navigation. An 
abundance of ship timber, particularly oak and 
pine, and a population accustomed to the sea — ex- 
cept the Huguenots and the German Palatines, — 
made the colonial merchant marine of the Jerseys 
famous along the Atlantic Coast. From Amboy 
and Salem, the main ports of East and West Jer- 
sey, yachts, snows, schooners, and larger craft en- 
tered and cleared for every sea-coast town from 
Boston to Charleston. 

Many of the vessels built in the Jerseys were 
registered in New York or Philadelphia, inasmuch 
as capital in those cities was largely interested in 
their construction. Seafaring life, however, in 
colonial times possessed dangers far beyond those 
encountered at the present day. The wild coast 
from Sandy Hook to Cape May was uninhabited 
save by isolated and often temporary settlements 
of beach-men. It was not until 1764 that the first 
lighthouse at Sandy Hook was erected, nor until 
the middle of the nineteenth century that an or- 
ganized lifesaving service was established, after 



204: NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

years of agitation on the part of the late Governor 
William A. Newell, a member of Congress from 
New Jersey in 1847-49 and governor of the State 
in 1856-59. 

The coasting vessels were ill-equipped and ill- 
provisioned, but lacked nothing in the fearless- 
ness and the hardihood of their crews. Every 
captain of standing in his profession was a pilot, 
had served " before the mast," and had attained 
position through sheer merit. It was also neces- 
sary that he should be skilled in the use of arms, 
and every coastwise craft, no matter how large or 
small, was prepared to meet the " free traders," 
whose cabins contained the flags of all nations, 
but particularly the sinister banner of piracy. 

Of the latter gentry much has been written, 
the very romance of the subject leading to a 
strange confusion of fact and fancy. In spite of 
the efforts of the home government to break up 
piracy on the American coast, the life itself, and 
the hope of great reward, led the authorities to 
wink at " expeditions " of various kinds and to 
even share in the profits, if some of the earlier 
writers are worthy of credence. Until well into 
the eighteenth century pirates lay at the entrance 
to Delaware Bay and stood outside Sandy Hook. 
To young men seeking adventure cruising in 
pirate craft gave opportunities for " seeing the 
world " and taking part in a contest which was 



ONY AND AS A STATE 205 



as much a trial of seamanship as it was an effort 
to secure ill-gotten gain. It is believed that dur- 
ing these wars of England with Continental pow- 
ers, for a period of one hundred years previous to 
the Revolution, letters under the authority of 
the custom officers of New Jersey w^ere issued 
under specious devices, but which practically au- 
thorized piratical voyages. The spirit of piracy 
actuated much colonial trading, particularly in 
the West Indies. Freedom from capture was nat- 
urally of greater merit than more ethical consider- 
ations. Upon the high seas human life and the 
rights of property were of less worth than upon 
land, both because of the difficulty of enforcing 
admiralty law and the greater freedom of a ship 
where the crew was often changed and the mas- 
ter's will was the sole source of power. 

An industry, now abandoned, but once so ac- 
tively prosecuted as to be extremely profitable, led 
to the settlement of the seashore fronts of Cape 
May, Atlantic, and Ocean Counties. The pres- 
ence of whales upon the coast of New Jersey 
caused Long Island and New England whalers to 
send fishermen to the southward. Settling tem- 
porarily, and lastly permanently, near Cape May 
and Tuckerton, the whalers in their small but 
stanch boats ranged the coast from Sandy Hook 
to the eastern shore. That the industry was of 
importance is shown by the instructions to Gov- 



"'fct-V 




206 



NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 



ernor Gawen La wry, given at London, July 20, 
1683, which provide that he should '' take particu- 
lar inspection into the conveniency of fishing 

* * * especially as to the whale fishing, which 
we [the Proprietors] desire may be encouraged," 

* * * lest the fishermen should be drawn else- 
where for want of due encouragement." In West 
Jersey Chapter IX of the Acts of October, 1693, 
provided that all persons not resident of the 
province or Pennsylvania " who shall kill or 
bring to shore any whale or whales in Delaware 



Bay, 



shall pay one full and entire 




tenth of all the oyl and bone made out of the said 
whale or whales unto the present Governor of this 
Province for the time being." 

In 1685 the whalers of Cape May, some of whom 
were French servants in the employ of the Coxe 
interest, became involved in litigation, which 
threatened the well being of the little settlement. 

Record is made of the appearance of whales in 
New York and Delaware Bays during the colonial 
period, and as late as 1830 one of the whaling 
families on Long Beach was still engaged in a des- 

ory manner in the capture of the whale. With 

e introduction of mineral oils, and the substitu- 
tion of steel and celluloid for whalebone, as well 
as on account of the extermination of the whales, 
the industry was in time abandoned. 



r-'i"'"' 



CHAPTER XI 

The Union of the Jerseys 



THE transfer of the rights of proprie- 
tary government of the Jerseys to 
the crown was the culmination of a 
short but effective period of polit- 
ical agitation. Upon the one side 
the proprietors of both divisions were involved in 
constant expense and trouble; upon the other the 
people were restive and clamorous for some per- 
manent form of government in which responsi- 
bility was lodged. Action in the matter was first 
taken by the East Jersey board, which presented 
to the " Council of Trade and Foreign Planta- 
tions " a " Memorial/' which was prepared in the 
latter part of 1698 or the early months of 1699. 

The East Jersey proprietors claimed vested title 
to the soil under the grant from Charles II to 
James, Duke of York, and subsequent mesne con- 
veyances, with powers of government, which pow- 
ers they offered to surrender in toto. This action 
would be taken by them provided the crown would 
confirm the title to the soil and lands of the prov- 
ince, and the quit-rents reserved upon the grants 
made or to be made; Perth Amboy made a port 
of entry and export; free trade with the In- 
dians continued; and a judicial system, with a 
superior court, separate from New York be estab- 
lished. It was also desired that Perth Amboy 
should be the place of public record for the colony 
as well as for the board, that county representation 



210 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

similar to that of New York in the Assembly be 
guaranteed, and that the council should contain 
a proportionate number of East Jerseymen. The 
proprietors further requested that they might 
" hold courts for the lands in their propriety- 
ships," that religious freedom be preserved, that 
the proprietors retain the right to grant licenses 
for fairs and markets, and that all lands, goods, 
and chattels of traitors, felons, deodands, fugitives, 
persons outlawed and put in exigent, waifs, 
estrays, treasure trove, mines and minerals, royal 
mines, wrecks, royal fish that shall be forfeited, 
found, or taken within East Jersey remain with 
the proprietors. To this the council made answer 
practically accepting the fundamental proposi- 
tions, saving the establishment of Perth Amboy 
as a port and the equality of New Jersey with 
New York in Assembly representation. 

West Jersey, apparently, took no separate ac- 
tion, except through her proprietors signing with 
the East Jersey board a united " humble " memo- 
rial presented to the Lords Justices of England. 
This petition is undated, but was probably writ- 
ten about 1699. Between the council and the pro- 
prietors a compromise was effected. In consider- 
ation of the acceptance of the surrender the pro- 
prietors withdrew their claim that Perth Amboy 
should be made a port of entry, and the discussion 
of the basis of representation was obviated. A com- 



ONY AND AtS A STATE 



211 



promise grew out of a second '' Memorial '' signed 
by both the East and West Jersey boards and pre- 
sented to the King in xlugust, 1701. The matter 
being referred to the Board of Trade, the opinion 
was handed down by that body that as there was 
no right of government existing in the proprie- 
tors it was expedient for the crown to assume the 
government of the provinces, and to appoint a 
suitable governor under instruction. 

One of the first official acts of Queen Anne, who 
came to the English throne early in 1702, was the 
acceptance of the full and unconditional sur- 
render of the right of government by deed of the 
West Jersey and East Jersey proprietors. ^ 

The governmental change, so auspiciously insti- T- 
tuted, was threatened with dire disaster through 
the stupid personality of the appointing powe^ 
and the weakness and cupidity of the appoint 
Queen Anne was but ill advised, and this, c 
bined with her wilfulness, led to the selecti 
Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, whose manifol 
faults, in charity, may be charged to degeneracy. 

Lord Cornbury, bearing his governor's commis- 
sion, arrived in New Jersey in 1703, and met the 
colonial Legislature in Perth Amboy in November 
of that year. In accordance with ancient custom, 
but unquestionably as a test concerning the gov- 
ernor's policy, its members made four demands to 
the effect that they with their servants be free 





Anne, second daughter of .lames II ; ft. Feb. 6, 1666 
succeeded William III, Mart* 8, 1702 ; d. .\ug. 1, 1714. 



212 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

from arrest or molestation during the session, 
that they have free access to the governor's pres- 
ence when occasion required, that liberty of speech 
in debate be allowed, and that the house and coun- 
cil reconcile, through their committees, all 
diiferences arising between them. To the last 
demand the governor refused to comply, although 
assenting to the rest. Under the rebuke the As- 
sembly smarted, but proceeded with their duties. 
Cornbury had proved himself inimical to the 
rights of the people, which position he intensified 
by attempting to sit in judgment upon the quali- 
fications of three West Jersey members of the 
house for the purpose of declaring their seats va- 
cant while he had passed certain personal legis- 
lation. 

The influence of this disturbance went abroad 
throughout the colony. Popular sentiment 
against Cornbury was aroused, the opponents of 
the governor centering around Samuel Jenings, 
speaker of the house, and Lewis Morris. 

After a display of bitterness, occasioned by the 
governor's appointing a favorite as secretary of 
the Legislature, the house, in May, 1707, resolved 
itself into a " grand " committee, resolving to lay 
their grievances " and the Arbitrary and Corrupt 
Practices of his ExcelF The lord Cornbury at her 
Maj'ts Royall feet." To this end a petition to the 
Queen, a letter to one of Her Majesty's secretaries 



ONY AND AS A STATE 213 



of state, and an address to the governor were pre- 
pared. In the address the charges against Corn- 
bury show not only his willful disregard for the 
terms of his instructions, but evince his spirit of 
political corruption that ever followed this profli- 
gate lord. He had, according to the Assembly, 
foisted upon public office " mean and mercenary 
men," had failed to attend to his office in New 
Jersey, had allowed murderers under sentence of 
death to go at large, had undertaken to establish 
court fees without legislative consent, and, among 
other matters, had refused members of the Legis- 
lature the right to take their seats. To this the 
governor made an inconsequent and vaporous re- 
ply, pouring out his spleen upon Jenings and Mor- 
ris, the popular leaders. 

No action being taken, the breach grew wider 
and wider and owing at last to remonstrances 
from the Assembly of New Jersey Cornbury, in 
1708, was removed from his position as governor 
of New Jersey. A like action was later taken in 
New York, although in the meantime his creditors 
had confined him in jail. Cornbury returned to 
Eligland, where he became third Earl of Clare 
don, and died in 1723. 

Although with the departure of Cornbury the 
colony became outwardly quiescent, the eril that 
the governor did lived after him. In its course, 
it was far-reaching as affecting the destinies -of 




GOVERNOR CORNBURY IN FEMAUE ATTIRE. 



214 



NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 



the colony. It lay in the power of the first royal 
governor to correct abuses of the past, strengthen 
the loyalty of the present, and lay broad plans for 
the future. But Cornbury had no aspirations be- 
yond the gratification of his selfish lusts. While 
engaged in attaining his own ends he sacrificed 
the hopes of an empire and paved the way for a 
spirit of resistance, first directed toward the gov- 
ernors of the crown and then against the crown 
itself. 

The Assembly first learned its power; the peo- 
ple recognized that no divinity hedged in a gov- 
ernor, although he represented in himself the per- 
son of his sovereign. It was but the first uncon- 
scious step toward that which even in dreams 
would have been treason — the independence of 
the colony. 




THE FIRST MAP OF NEW YORK CITY. 



CHAPTER XII 
The Governor, Council, and Assembly 



WITH the acceptance, on April IT, 
1702, of the surrender of gov- 
ernment, by deed of the proprie- 
tors of East Jersey and the pro- 
prietors of West Jersey, Queen 
Anne in her " Instructions," given, on the 16th day 
of November, 1702, to Governor Cornbury, pro- 
vided for the government of the colony. These 
" Instructions," although in no sense organic law, 
were an unmistakable exposition of the attitude of 
the crown toward Her Majesty's colony of New 
Jersey. 

As these " Instructions " were repeated, in sub- 
stance if not in form, for the guidance of succeed- 
ing royal governors, and as the frame of govern- 
ment depended upon their observance, their plan 
and scope, as affecting the executive and legis- 
lative departments of the colony, are worthy of 
examination. The governor's duties under the 
" Instructions " were to see that all laws be en- 
acted in the name and style " by the Governor, 
Council, and Assembly," and that the titles of 
all statutes conform to the subject matter, before 
being sent to England for approval. Upon the 
governor was laid the duty of providing for the 
levying of money or imposing fines and penalties, 
to raise money necessary for the provision of gov- 
ernment and his own salary as well as that of his 
successors, and to levy customs duties and imposi- 



218 NEW JERSEY AS A OOL 

tions on all exports and imports of the province. 
The governor was also directed to prevent the 
purchase of Indian lands, as well as to suppress 
piracy, nor was he to erect any court, not before 
established, without special order. 

Lord Cornbury was further directed to have 
oversight that no man's life, member, freehold, 
or goods be taken away or harmed otherwise than 
by due process of law; that liberty of conscience 
be allowed to every one "except Papists"; that 
Quakers be allowed to affirm; and that the Book 
of Common Prayer be read and the sacraments of 
the Church of England be properly administered. 
The liberty of the press was restrained to the ex- 
tent that no press be set up in the province unless 
by the governor's order. 

For the organization of the council twelve 
members were provided, to whom the " Suprem- 
acy " oath, guaranteeing the succession of the 
Protestant line, and the " Test " oath, " for pre- 
venting dangers which may happen from Popish 
recusants," were to be administered. These coun- 
cillors were to be chosen equally between East 
and West Jersey. The council and governor were 
to act as a court of errors, under certain specified 
conditions, appeals lying thence to the Privy 
Council in England. 

The Assembly was directed to be composed of 
twenty-four representatives, two from Perth Am- 



ONY A^B AS A STATE 219 



boy, two from Burliugtou, ten from East Jersey, 
and ten from West Jersey. A property qualifica- 
tion required that every member of the Assembly 
should have one thousand acres of an estate in 
freehold, and every elector have one hundred 
acres in a similar estate. 

Allovi^ing for certain local conditions, the simi- 
larity between this frame of government and that 
of other royal colonies is apparent. The govern- 
or represented in his person the might, dominion, 
majesty, and power of his sovereign. Around him 
was his council, composed of men favorable to the 
administration, individuals of influence and 
wealth. The council and governor selected the 
justices of the Supreme Court, the judges of the 
county court, justices of the peace, the sheriffs 
and certain minor county officers, to whom com- 
missions were issued under the great seal of the 
colony. The governor was also chancellor, and 
commander-in-chief of the land and naval forces 
of the colony. 

The elective franchise was granted to but a por- 
tion of the people, and was confined to their choice 
of representatives to sit in the General Assembly. 
Property qualifications limited the number of 
voters as well as restrained the list of those who 
could sit in the lower house. Under such a polit- 
ical atmosphere, with the crown " as the fountain 
of all justice," and the interests of the colonists 



220 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

subservient thereto, there arose an early spirit of 
unrest that, growing with the years, finally broke 
into organized opposition. 

From the intrusion of Governor Cornbury 
until the expulsion of Governor Franklin 
there appear certain distinctive features in 
the political history of the colony. Certain 
conditions occur and recur with modifications 
of time and circumstances. For seventy-five 
years there was friction between the governor 
and his council upon one side and the House of 
Assembly upon the other. The chief executive 
was usually a member of the Church of England, 
which, struggling for general recognition in the 
colony, made head largely by reason of royal pro- 
tection. The governors surrounded themselves 
with representatives of the landed interests of 
West Jersey, or wealthy merchants and men of 
estate in East Jersey. Except in a few instances 
the governors had the supjjort of the Society of 
Friends, whose property required protection and 
who were adherents of constituted authority. In 
the house the restive spirit was often led by men 
in whose veins flowed the blood of the Cove- 
nanters, for all through the long quarrels be- 
tween the governor and the Assembly it was East 
Jerseymen who were most active in the defense of 
their political rights. 

The points of difference which tended to dis- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 221 



turb the relations between the governor, his coun- 
cU, and the Assembly were mainly of an economic 
character. The poverty of Xew Jersey, whether 
pretended or real, was constantly before the eyes 
of the governors. Although the words of welcome 
extended to the Assembly by the governor might 
be complimentary, and the reply couched in re- 
spectful if not admiring language, the salary list 
soon brought a drop of venom to the surface of the 
smiling waters in the cup of peace. Then would 
the Assemblv refuse to grant monevs for the gov- 
ernor's stipend, followed by the demand for a fiat 
money, the issuance of such paper currency being 
first allowed by the crown as a war measure. 

Throughout the years the undercurrent of re- 
sistance grew stronger and stronger. It ran so 
deep that few realized its importance. The royal 
governors, basking in the light of royal favor and 
hoping for prefer-ment, were apparently totally in- 
different to its existence. It was an unorganized 
movement, but in the light of history its course 
can be readily discerned. A recent writer has 
shown that many of the emigrants, who earlier 
were homeless and friendless, had become tenants 
of the large landowners or had acquired small 
holdings, but not enough to entitle them to suf- 
frage. Lving as it did between New York and 
Philadelphia, both of which cities were growing in 
importance, Xew Jersey was crossed and re- 



222 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

crossed bj a drifting class of adventurers, men 
who seized upon an outcry to disturb the public 
peace, held forth to ill-informed audiences in way- 
side taverns, or encouraged redemptioners and 
other short-term slaves to run away from their 
masters. These elements and the small farmer, 
urged on by the adventurers, were the first to pro- 
test against the limitations of the franchise, the 
severity of the criminal laws, the method of ap- 
pointing judges, and the general static conditions 
prevalent in the colony. As early as 1710 there 
are traces of the sentiment, " taxation without 
representation," in the expressions of opinion by 
members of the Assembly, while the unpublished 
records of the Supreme Court show several trials 
and convictions for treasonable utterances public- 
ly made by more than one unfortunate agitator. 

Added to the local conditions was the stupid, 
stultifying policy of the home government. Al- 
though not personally responsible, the governor, 
charged with the execution of the acts of Parlia- 
ment, was compelled to bear the odium of enforc- 
ing objectionable legislation. Briefly it may be 
stated that England regarded New Jersey and her 
other transatlantic colonies merely as sources of 
revenue, whence could be drawn money and food. 
" Crushed competition " was the cry of the Eng- 
lish and Scottish workingman, and in the process 
of destroying the economic life of her dependen- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 223 



cies she lost them forever. One of the State his- 
torians has tersely stated that in New Jersey, by 
legislation England throttled the bog-iron forges 
for the benefit of her home laborers; prohibited 
the exportation of American woolen goods; 
restricted the sale of wooden staves and hoops, 
sought to confine the trade in beaver hats, and 
refused, as a crowning exhibition of economic 
weakness, to permit a free circulation of money. 
The colony was placed upon the weakest possible 
economic basis. With a paper currency, which 
depreciated with every adverse wind that blew, 
New Jersey relied upon so frail a medium of ex- 
change. There was also a congested circulation 
of European gold, silver, and copper. The minted 
coin quickly fell into the hands of the merchants 
and landowners, who contracted and expanded 
the circulating medium, either unintentionally or 
otherwise. 

With poor roads, ineffective mail service, and 
other instruments of association blunted or neg- 
lected, the condition of the colony was unques- 
tionably in need of relief. 

Although the legislation passed by Parliament 
to thus hamper economic growth was copious, it 
may be resolved, according to John Bach McMas- 
ter, into four distinct elements: 

1. It was required that colonial trade should 
be carried on in ships built and owned in Eng- 



224 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

land or in the colonies, two-thirds of the crew to 
consist of English subjects. 

2. Most of the products of the colonies could 
be sent only to England. Certain products 
could be shipped to any port in the world, but 
these products w^ere few in number. 

3. Intercolonial commerce was prohibited to 
the extent that, if a given article which went from 
one colony to another was of a kind that might 
have been supplied from England, it must either 
go to England and be transshipped to the purchas- 
ing colony, or pay an export duty, where it was 
shipped, equal to the import duty it would have to 
pay in England. 

4. All goods forwarded from Europe to Amer- 
ica must first be sent to England. 

To enforce these regulations there grew up in 
New Jersey a spy-system, which affected every 
merchant, every vessel owner, and every trader. 
Naturally there was much violation of the law, 
although many of the most active smugglers were 
never brought to justice. The crown officials, col- 
lectors of customs, revenue inspectors, and the 
like were often men who held their offices as re- 
wards for services rendered the home government, 
and, as they were practically autocrats in their 
little spheres, they profited accordingly. The 
moral effect upon the business sense of the com- 
munity was bad, and the most enterprising smug- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



225 



gler — provided he was successful — was duly ad- 
mired by the masses, not only for his boldness, 
but because he had outwitted the crown officers, 
or had purchased their silence. 

It was under such conditions as these that even 
an intense loyalty became shaken, and that men of 
affairs, whose careers had been made possible 
through royal recognition, were willing at last to 
cast the fateful die, and in a revolution be willing 
to risk their lives, fortunes, and devotion to their 
sovereign for the sake of right and for the sake 
of a principle. 




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BERGEN AND BUYTEN TUYr 



CHAPTER XIII 
The Beginnings of Transportation 



THE Indian, who in his " dugout " 
canoe paddled his way fearlessly 
through the rifts and rapids of the 
Delaware, or, unmindful of its ma- 
jestic beauty, fished in the silent 
waters at the mouth of the Hudson, gave to the 
Swedish and Dutch settlers their first method of 
transportation upon the internal waterways of a 
new land. Although slow to adopt most devices 
of the redmen, the immigrants took kindly to the 
canoe, and found in it a safer and much swifter 
method of reaching sparsely settled communities 
than in the employment of their sturdy but cum- 
bersome rowboats and yawls. Nor were the Eng- 
lish less impressed by the canoe. With them, 
somewhat modified in lines and improved in com- 
fort, the canoe came into general use. Such a 
method of transportation was a prime necessity. 
Only by such means could association be had 
among those widely scattered settlements which 
dotted the mouths of creeks emptying into tide- 
water in the eastern and western divisions. In 
letters of the time reference is made to the canoe, 
and, when occasion arises, with sufficient praise. 
With the growth of population the demand 
came for better methods. The yacht and schooner 
appear, and shipyards dot the shores of the rivers 
and streams in the vicinity of New York and 
Philadelphia. The Swedes and Dutch had already 




VIEW OF NEW YORK IN 1G73. 



230 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

built some vessels of size, and the English under- 
took the construction of larger craft. Along the 
Monmouth shore, at Elizabeth and at Newark, 
there was a growing trade and an increasing com- 
munity of interests. In West Jersey, owing to the 
wide, shallow streams, marshes, and heavy forests, 
association among the river-front towns was al- 
most impossible except by water. The conditions 
demanded serviceable river craft, strong enough, 
indeed, to undertake the voyage along the sea 
coast between New York and Philadelphia. 

Following the establishment of this form of 
communication came the construction of roads — 
mere trails, indeed, following the wanderings of 
the Indian paths and along the lines of least nat- 
ural resistance, but roads sufficient for all pur- 
poses. In East Jersey most of the roads were 
established by orders of the court or by direction 
of the town authorities. In general terms these 
roads extended northward and westward along 
the river valleys, projected to the settlements sit- 
uated upon the Hackensack and Passaic, and 
reaching Newark. Thence a road ran to Elizabeth- 
town and to Elizabethport, thence to Amboy and 
to Inian's Ferry (now New Brunswick). A series 
of roads and paths connected the towns on the 
north Monmouth shore. 

In West Jersey a road extended from the Falls 
of the Delaware (Trenton) to Crosswicks, thence 



ONY AND AS A STATE 231 

to Burlington, to Newton, to Salem, and later to 
Cohanzy Bridge (Bridgeton). In Burlington and 
Gloucester Counties side roads connected this 
main highway with the settlements in the " back 
country," A road extended from Portsmouth 
(Cape May Town) to Somer's Point and thence by 
trail to Tuckerton. 

At best these roads were little more than paths, 
yet over them rode the members of the Assembly 
and council, judges of the court, and merchants. 
In the carrying of goods both packhorses and the 
sturdy backs of Indian and negro slaves were em- ^^ 

ployed. The latter were usually sent in the care aLKioH ok 1788. 

of some competent supervisor, although the cus- 
tom early disappeared, the horse remaining until 
a much later day. 

But while the two divisions of the State were en- 
abled to sustain local relations there was, 
for the time, a barrier which separated East and 
West Jersey and rendered association between the 
two provinces most difficult. Between New 
Brunswick and Trenton lies a narrow waste of 
land, about thirty miles in width, which for many 
years prevented communication. Through this 
wilderness there was an Indian trail, along or 
near which, in 1695, the Legislature of East Jer- 
sey provided for the reconstruction of an existing 
public road. 

The earliest evidences of a direct and perma- 



232 NEW JEESEY AS A OOL 

nent association between the Delaware and Rari- 
tan Rivers appear in the announcement made in 
the American Weekly Mercury^ January, 1737-38, 
when to " Accommodate the Public " it was an- 
nounced that a " stage waggon " would run on 
Mondays and Thursdays from Trenton to New 
Brunswick, returning from New Brunswick on 
Tuesdays and Fridays. The rates were 2s.6d. each 
passenger. A summer stage was " fitted up with 
Benches and Cover'd over, so that Passengers may 
sit Easy and Dry." 

As early as 1723 a stage ran twice a week be- 
tween Trenton (presumably from Morrisville) and 
Philadelphia. Later, in 1728, a stage was in readi- 
ness at Bedford's Ferry, opposite Amboy, to trans- 
port goods and passengers to Burlington " when- 
ever Freight presents," and in 1733 two wagons 
were announced as " intending to go from Burling- 
ton to Amboy and back from Amboy to Burling- 
ton again. Once every Week or offt'er if that 
Business presents." These latter ventures prob- 
ably proved unprofitable, as no further reference 
to them appears. 

In 1740 the Trenton-Amboy line again appears, 
which soon had a formidable rival in the line suc- 
cessfully projected and for many years sustained 
by Joseph Borden, founder of Bordentown. In 
the spring of 1740 he announced a " stage wag- 
on " to run from Bordentown to Perth Ambov, 



ONY AND AS A STATE 233 

and what was evidently another line from Amboy 
to Crosswicky Bridge and thence '' if Lading pre- 
sents " to Burlington. 

In 1750 Daniel O'Brien, who, according to the 
New York Gazette Revived in the Weekly Post Botj, 
" put up at Mr. John Thompson's at the Thistle 
and Crown known by the Name of ' Scotch John- 
ney's,' " gives notice to " Gentlemen and Ladies " 
that he conducts a " Stage boat * * * if 
Wind and Weather permit," from New York to 
Amboy, and thence by stage to Bordentown, 
where another stage boat runs to Philadelphia. 
The rates are the same as between New Bruns- 
wick and Trenton and " the Roads generally 
drier." In 1752, from an advertisement of Joseph 
Borden. Jr., it is learned that the trip from Phila- 
delphia to New York consumed from thirty to 
forty hours, which under the same management in 
1753 was cut down to twenty-four hours, the wag- 
on route consuming a day. In the same year a 
wagon from New Brunswick to Trenton was run 
with a " stage boat " from Trenton Ferry to Phila- 
delphia. A contemporaneous Burlington com- 
pany, to promote " the general good of mankind 
in increasing and facilitating trade and com- 
merce," offered " stage waggons " and " stage 
boats " between Philadelphia and New York, 
claiming that Borden's twenty-four trip is hyper- 




VIEW or NKW YORK. 



234 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



bole, and that his stage boat is " frequently three 
tides upon the water." 

For several years the Burlington-Bordentown 
competition raged furiously, and finally died out 
as travel was diverted to the land route from 
Philadelphia. On June 16, 1757, appears an ad- 
vertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette to the ef- 
fect that on Tuesdays a stage would run from 
Philadelphia to Trenton Ferry and thence on 
Wednesdays to New Brunswick and the Blazing 
Star Tavern kept by Jacob Randolph, where pas- 
sengers and goods will reach New York that 
night. In 1759 a new route from Philadelphia 
to New York was opened from Daniel Cooper's 
Ferry (Camden) to Mount Holly, thence to Mid- 
dletown and Sandy Hook, and by boat to New 
York, with a branch line to Shrewsbury. In 1759 
a four-horse stage was projected between Stirling 
Iron Works and the Landing. 

The growth of these " stage waggon " and 
" stage boat " routes is indicative of a develop- 
ment, not only of the colony itself, but of con- 
stantly increasing association between Philadel- 
phia and New York. Nor was this all. Philadel- 
phia w'as the center of the young settlements that 
lined the frontier (the Allegheny Mountains) as 
weljl as the rapidly growing territory which lay 
al6lig the valley of the Schuylkill and its tributary 
streams. Into Philadelphia came merchants from 




AN KARLY TAVERN YARD. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 235 

Delaware, Virginia, aud Maryland, and even the 
Carolinas. New York drew from the valley of 
the Hudson and all the settled portions of New 
England. 

There were signs of united action, not only 
political, but commercial, in the colonial sky. The 
two cities were slowly becoming associated, and 
were reaching out across New Jersey, through 
the Bordens, O'Brien, and the Burlington Com- 
pany, for a better and more permanent acquaint- 
anceship. The pioneers in this primitive system 
of transportation have been forgotten, but their 
efforts and the efforts of others like them, in many 
places through the colonies, were agencies in 
making national unity a possibility. 

By the opening of the Kevolutionary War there 
were several systems of roads in New Jersey. 
One reached southward from Cooper's Ferry 
(Camden) to Gloucester, Woodbury, Raccoon, 
Penn's Neck, Salem, Greenwich, Cohanzy, and 
thence by Maurice River to Cape May. From Cape 
May a road skirted the shore until it reached the 
main road leading from Burlington to the vicinity 
of Tuckerton. From Burlington roads radiated 
to Moorestown, Mount Holly, and Eayrestown, 
while the road from Camden paralleled the river 
to Bordentown and Trenton. This embraced the 
main arteries of travel in Southern New Jersey. 

From Bordentown and Trenton to the Raritan 



236 NEW JEllSEY AS A GOL 

Kiver two roads, one direct to New Brunswick, 
the other a few miles to the eastward — the old 
stage roads, — were well defined. On the north 
shore of Monmouth County Freehold was con- 
nected with Shrewsbury and Cranbury, and 
Crosswicks with Middletown and New Brunswick. 
The Karitan Valley was a network of roads con- 
necting the towns of the Dutch settlements, not 
only with the villages on the Delaware as far west 
as Phillipsburg, but with Trenton and the South. 

From Phillipsburg a great road extended north- 
east through Oxford to Walpack. Here a branch 
ran to the tri-States line, while a fork extended 
along the drowned lands to Goshen, N. Y., and 
thence to the Hudson. At Oxford was the west- 
ern end of a road leading through Hackettstown, 
Sucassunny, and Mendham, to Morristown. From 
Morristown there were roads to Hackensack and 
to Woodbridge. From what is now Jersey City 
a road ran along the Palisades to Haverstraw, and 
thence north, while another highway extended 
through Schraalenburg and Eingwood. The con- 
gested centers north of the Karitan and east of 
the hill country, including Metuchen, Scotch 
Plains, Springfield, Elizabethtown, Rahway, New- 
ark, and the region now known as Paterson, were 
thoroughly united. 

Upon the public highways there were some 
highwaymen and not a few horse thieves. Of the 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



237 



latter Tom Bell, a noted character in his day and 
the hero of many exploits, is best remembered. 
But the State appears to have been singularly 
free from depredations of this class of crim- 
inals, although the opportunities offered them 
were abundant. The prompt and efficacious ad- 
ministration of criminal law, and the severe pen- 
alties prescribed for such offenses, acted as a re- 
straint upon this element and led to few but thor- 
oughly effective convictions. 




A NEW JERSEY 8TAGB COACH. 



C H A P T E R XI V 
Currency and Counterfeiting 



To THE Algonkain ludian must be 
credited the establishment of the 
first medium of exchange within 
the boundaries of the State of New 
Jersey. When the Dutch and 
Swedes came to the valleys of the Hudson and 
Delaware they found the Lenni-Lenape and kin- 
dred peoples possessed of a money which, while 
crude, was satisfactory — so satisfactory, indeed, 
that the settlers provided, by custom and law, 
for its use among themselves and in their trading 
relations with neighboring tribes. This money 
was the wampum, — the shell money of the peltry 
dealer and of the signers of treaties. In such 
esteem were these belts held that early in the set- 
tlement of Burlington a negro woman was 
brought before the Court " for stealing and de^ 
facing ye Indian Belt p'sented by ye SachemT^a^ 
ye Gov'nor." ^ 

Made from shells of bivalves, usually ta^^eo' 
mon clam, wampum-mints embraced any region in 
which the shells abounded. To the Indian the 
clam served a double purpose, as he used the efl^ 
ble portion and dried it against the winter, and 
made his money from the polished covering. The 
manufacture of wampum was most extensively 
conducted in New Jersey. A full description of 
the manufacture and uses of wampum is given in 
William Nelson's " Indians of New Jersey," pp. 




m\H 




A BELT OF 
WAMFUM. 



242 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




AZTEC COIN. 



35-39. It was made in the form of beads, ground 
down to the thickness of a large straw, about a 
third of an inch in length, smoothly polished, 
bored longitudinally with sharp stones, and 
strung upon thongs or the sinews of animals. The 
white beads were called wampum, and the blue, 
purple, or violet beads were called suckhanock, 
or black wampum. The latter, being less plenti- 
ful, and perhaps preferred for its color, was rated 
at twice the value of the former. The strings of 
wampum were of different lengths, and their value 
increased in proportion to the quantity of black. 
Besides being " money," the arrangement of the 
pieces in strings, and these made into a belt, were 
records. Treaties were also made with such shell 
documents. 

Probably both men and women made wampum, 
the process of manufacture consisting in cutting 
it out in the rough with a flint flake, probably 
serrated, or in other words a flint saw. The pieces 
were perforated with a stone drill. Both forms of 
these mintstone implements are common in col- 
lections, as inter-tribal commerce was very widely 
carried on, and wampum was unquestionably ex- 
changed very extensively. The clam occurs only 
on our Atlantic seaboard, and the wampum has 
been found far inland. Nor indeed was it until 
comparatively recent years that the manufacture 
of wampum was abandoned in New Jersey, for it 



ONY AND AS A STATE 243 

was made in Franklin Townsliip, Bergen Coun- 
ty, as late as 1860. The manufacture was con- 
ducted by white women, the product being sold to 
Indian traders in the then far West. 

In the beginnings of English colonial life in 
East and West Jersey specie, gold, silver, or cop- 
per were scarce. The economic policy of the 
crown practically prevented its circulation, and in 
obedience to its own law the metals sought a 
common center, either New York or Philadelphia. 
How small was the amount the inventories of es- 
tates taken before 1725 disclose, even in cases of 
men possessed of vast landed interests. 

But there was sufficient silver money in East 
Jersey by 1686 to justify the Legislature in pass- 
ing an act regulating the rate of exchange — a 
statute which throws a clear light upon the mone- 
tary condition of the day. " For the public weal 
of the Province " it was enacted that, " Foras- 
much as it is daily found by experience, the 
growth and prosperity of this Province is 
much obstructed by the continual draining 
the silver money, that is most valuable, by 
persons that come only to trade and carry 
away the money in specie, without either 
turning or trading the same amongst the inhab- 
itants of this Province, whereby whatever money 
persons bring in hither from England or Scot- 
land, or any other part, not knowing the value 



>«:.v. I '.y^'^'-^ 



244 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

thereof, it is presently exhausted out of their 
hands by non-residents, so that the country is not 
at all benefited by such silver money, neither is 
the growth or produce of the Province at all wast- 
ed or made use of by such traders, which is a griev- 
ance much prejudicial to the inhabitants, and re- 
dounds much to the impoverishment of the Prov- 
ince, so that the commodities arising by the 
growth and produce of the place are not estemable 
by persons bringing commodities from foreign 
parts, but the best of the coin is carried away for 
England and other places, as returns, or else 
pay'd away to neighboring Provinces for their 
commodities." 

The money then in circulation in ^ast Jersey 
embraces in its nomenclature a quaint catalogue 
of coins. There were the Mexican and Seville pil- 
lar pieces of eight, Peru pieces of eight, double, 
single, and half bits, English crowns, shillings, 
and gold guineas. New England shillings, dollars 
from the realm of the Prince Electors of Germany, 
ducatoons, Scots four-mark pieces, and French 
crown pieces. But the act was subsequently re- 
pealed, as it was found " by experience that many 
in Conveniences " attended its successful execu- 
tion. 

In West Jersey, where the racial elements in 
economic life were homogeneous, the intensely 
English character^of the settlement is shown by 




CRO\\ N : (tKORGB II. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



245 



the fact that in the rate of exchange only English 
coins are mentioned. Under the proceedings of 
the commissioners, May 3, 1681, it was ordered by 
the court having jurisdiction over the liberties 
and precincts of Burlington that English coin 
should pass at the following rates : 

1 Shilling, @, 1.6. (other pieces in proportion). 
King's Copper Farthing, @ }4 penny. 
}4 pence, @ 1 penny. 

Moreover no one was compelled to take above " six pounds of ye 
said Copper Coyne in one payment." 

In the genera] free Assembly held at Burling- 
ton, November 21-28, 1681, Chapter XXVI of a 
general act provided that an Old England shilling 
should pass at eighteen pence and other coin pro- 
portionately, while a New England shilling was 
legalized at fourteen pence and lesser denomina- 
tions in a like ratio. This act was made void after 
May 18, 1682, by the Assembly of the latter year. 
Exactly two years after, or in 1684, it was ordered 
that " three farthings of the King's Coin shall be 
accounted and go current for one penny within 
this Province, and so proportionately to greater 
sums; provided none shall be constrained to take 
more than five shillings thereof at one payment." 

In 1693 was passed an act by the West Jersey 
Legislature regulating the rates of coins, conform- 
ing the same to the current rates in Pennsylvania. 
The Spanish influence appears, as in East Jersey, 




SHILLING : GEORGE H 



246 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

in the mention of " pillar, Mexico, and Sivil pieces 
of eight ", " ryalls or bits ", dog dollars, Peru 
pieces of eight, and Peru ryalls. No French coins 
are named. It was, moreover, provided that " all 
person and persons whatsoever resident in this 
Province, or that shall come from remote parts to 
trade amongst us, shall and are hereby obliged to 
receive and pay the same " according to the values 
specified in the act, except they plainly bargain 
to the contrary. 

In May, 1682, an attempt was made by the Leg- 
islature to secure for West Jersey a separate coin- 
age, and there appears to the world Mark Newbie, 
a member of the Society of Friends and one of the 
earliest settlers of the site of Gloucester. The ne- 
cessity for a coin of small denomination was se- 
verely felt, and Newbie, who evidently had in his 
possession a quantity of copper coins, was em- 
powered to supply the demand. The act provides : 

That Mark Newbies half-pence called Patricks half-pence, shall, 
from and after the said Eighteenth Instant pass for half-pence Cur- 
rent pay of this Province, provided he, the said Mark, give suffi- 
cient security to the Speaker of this House for the use of the General 
Assembly from time to time being, that he the said Mark, his ex- 
ecutors and administrators, shall and will change the said half pence 
for pay equivalent upon demand ; and provided also that no Person 
or Persons be hereby obliged to take more than five shillings in one 
payment. 

The coins were immediately placed in circula- 
tion, Newbie gave security for the issuance of hiis 




CROWN : JAMES U. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 247 



pence, and to this day the coppers may be found 
lodged in private hands in parts of West Jersey. 

From over-sea the transplantation, practically 
in bulk, of a considerable quantity of cop- 
per coins suggests the inquiry as to the 
nature of the coins themselves, and as to 
the manner in which they came into the possession 
of Mark Newbie. Unfortunately the origin of 
the coins is still open to controversy. Among 
the views taken by numismatists one finds that 
the Newbie or Patrick pence were medals of Papist 
origin of the time of Charles I, upon the occasion 
of the Protestant massacre, that they were Dublin 
tokens, or that they were authorized by the Kil- 
kenny Assembly, prototypes in silver having been 
minted on the Continent and brought into Ireland, 
when money was scarce, for use by the con- 
federated army. That there were several varieties 
is well known, two most common being : on the ob- 
verse a kneeling, crowned king — David, probably, 
or even Charles, who was fond of music — playing 
a harp. Above is a crown in brass with the leg- 
end " Floreat Rex." The reverse shows Saint 
Patrick, with a trefoil in his right and a crozier 
in his left hand, surrounded by people; at his left 
is a shield charged with three castles and the leg- 
end " Ecce Grex." Another reverse represents 
Saint Patrick stretching his right hand, driving 
away reptiles and serpents, whilst in his left hand 




A PATRICK PRNCK,, 



248 



NEW JEESEY AS A COL 




is a metropolitan cross and on the extreme right 
a church. The legend of the latter is " Quiescat 
Plebs." 

That Mark Newbie secured these coins in Ire- 
land is probably true, as it was from Ireland, 
on the 19th of September, 1681, that he embarked 
in a narrow sterned pink called " Ye Owner's Ad- 
venture," commanded by Mate Dagget. After a 
voyage of two months he arrived, by the grace of 
God, within " ye Capes of ye De La Ware," and 
after spending the winter in the vicinity of Salem 
finally took up a twentieth share of land, nearly 
midway between Cooper's Creek and Newton 
GUINEA : GEOKGE Eu. Creck lu what was known as the Irish Tenth. Oc- 
cupying positions of trust in the Society and in the 
Assembly, Newbie became one of the most prom- 
inent men in the colony. He did not live to see the 
outcome of his project to circulate Patrick's 
pence, dying early in 1683, and leaving a balance 
of £30 due West New Jersey. With his death the 
story of the Newbie coppers closed forever. 

The instructions to Governor Cornbury forbade 
the exercise of executive power in assenting to any 
law altering the price or value of the current coin, 
without particular leave or direction. Although 
a wide scope for exercising gubernatorial power 
had been left to Cornbury, this question of money 
rates was jealously guarded by the home govern- 
ment, and for this reason, in June, 1704, came the 




ONY AND AS A STATE 



249 



proclamation of Queen Anne regarding the rates 
at which foreign moneys should pass in the col- 
onies, soon succeeded by an act of Parliament en- 
forcing the proclamation. 

To public spirited men of influence in England 
projects concerning an independent coinage for 
America were most attractive. Possibly William 
Wood's " Rosa Americana " coins are the longest 
remembered. Wood, incurring the enmity of 
Dean Swift, owing to a plan for an Irish coinage, 
turned his attention to the transatlantic colonies. 
Upon the 21st of June, 1738, Wood laid a proposi- 
tion before the Lords of Trade and Plantations 
relative to the issuing of paper money and the 
raising of the coin. He proposed a gold, silver, 
and copper coinage which should have " America " 
stamped on its face. The scheme for its distribu- 
tion, passing, and use in the colonies was elabo- 
rate, but unsatisfactory, insomuch that the subject 
was abandoned. In the meantime the proclama- 
tion of Queen Anne was more honored in the 
breach than in the observance, so much so, indeed, 
that in 1740 Governor Morris, owing to open and 
notorious violations, proclaimed anew the rates 
established under Queen Anne relative to the 
passing and accepting of sevil pieces of eight, 
cross dollars, ducatoons of Flanders, ecus of 
France, crusadoes of Portugal, old rex dollars, 
dog dollars, and gilder pieces of Holland. 





ROSA AMERICANA 
HALFPENNIES. 



250 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




COPPER TOKEN. 



The close of the Revolution found the State 
of New Jersey greatly in need of a small cop- 
per coin. This fact, joined with a declaration of 
State sovereignty, led to the issuance of certain 
coins familiarly known as " Jersey " or " Horse 
Head " coppers. The abundance of copper in New 
Jersey, the ease with which it could be minted, 
and the demand occasioned by the partial revival 
of trade after the war led the General Assembly 
on May 23, 1786, to consider the proposals of Wal- 
ter Mould, Thomas Goadsby, and Albion Cox " for 
striking a Copper Coin for the State of New Jer- 
sey." A committee was appointed to confer with 
the minters. The next day the committee re- 
ported that Mould and his associates should be 
permitted to coin £10,000 or less of coppers, the 
State to receive a seigniorage of one-eleventh, or, 
if a greater sum than £10,000, " to as large an 
amount as will pass current without Depreci- 
ation," then the State was to receive one-tenth. 

The 25th of May found another applicant for 
authority to become State coiner. This was Will- 
iam Leddle, who in a memorial stated that as he 
was possessed of considerable quantities of cop- 
per, as well as iron factories suitable for minting, 
he desired to be empowered with privileges of 
coining. He guaranteed the coppers to be of full 
weight, that the Legislature should devise the im- 
pression, that he should acknowledge a State 




ROSA AMERICANA I'KNNY. 



OXY AND AS A STATE 251 



seigniorage of oue-uiiith, aud that lie was willing 
to accept paper money emitted by the State in 
exchange for the coppers. He asked for five days 
to prove his skill. 

But Leddle was unsuccessful, his memorial was 
ignored, and upon the 1st of June, 17SC, there was 
passed " An Act for the Establishment of a Coin- 
age of Copper in this State," of which the follow- 
ing w^as the preamble: 

Whereas, The Copper Coin now current and passing in this State 
consists mostly of base Metal, and of Coppers so small and light as 
to be of very little real Value, whereby the Citizens of this State 
are subjected to manifest Loss and Inconvenience and are liable to 
be greatly defrauded. 

The act set forth that Walter Mould, Thomas 
Goadsby, and Albion Cox, their survivor or sur- 
vivors, were empowered to coin £10,000 at fifteen 
coppers to the shilling. Each copper was to 
weigh 6 dwt. and 6 grs., manufactured and coined 
in New Jersey, with the obverse and reverse to be 
designed by the justices of the Supreme Court or 
any one of them. At any time Congress could 
alter the value of the coins. The coiners were 
also to enter into a bond to the governor of the 
State in the sum of £10,000 conditioned that the 
£10,000 in coppers be struck off within two years, 
rendering unto the treasurer of the State the 
seigniorage of one-tenth, and account to the Legis- 
lature for the said seigniorage. Finally any one 




y 



THE FIRST MOMKY COINK i 



252 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



who should be guilty of coining coppers without 
leave of the Legislature first had and obtained 
should forfeit the sum of £12, recoverable by the 
county collector in an act of debt in any court of 
competent jurisdiction. Upon the 17th of Novem- 
ber, 1786, a petition from Thomas Goadsby and 
Albion Cox prayed that they be made independent 
of Walter Mould, and that they coin only two- 
thirds of the said £10,000. A bill to that effect 
was passed on the 22d day of November, 1786. In 
this act Walter Mould was empowered separately 
to coin his one-third, viz., £3333. 6. 8. Why 
the triple partnership was broken is unknown ex- 
cept that, in the wording of the act, " Delays have 
been occasioned and the good intentions of the 
Act is likely to be defeated by the Circumstances 
of the parties being jointly bound to execute the 
contract." 

The " mints " in which the " Horse Head " cop- 
pers were struck off w^ere in Morristown and Eliza- 
bethtown, according to the best authorities. 

During the three years of coinage, 1786, 1787, 
and 1788, there was but a single type employed, 
of which, however, there are many varieties. On 
the obverse one finds the horse's head, beneath 
which is a plow, the legend " Nova Csesarea " and 
date, on the reverse a shield, which, if emblazoned, 
would be argent, six pales, gules, a chief, azure, 
and the motto " E Pluribus Unum." It will be 




SILVER DOLLAR OK 1794. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



253 



noted that the justices who, according to the act, 
originated the design followed closely the State 
coat of arms, drawings for which were made in the 
fall of ITTG and which were adopted in May, 1777. 
In this the horse's head serves for a crest, while 
three plows occupy the shield. 

The introduction of the Federal system of coin- 
age under the constitutional provisions led to th^ 
immediate abandonment of copper coinage on th 
part of the State of New Jersey. 

Of all outward causes for political contention 
no one subject excited greater popular interest 
than did the issuance of paper money in the col- 
ony and State of New Jersey. The scarcity of 
specie, the ability of colonial merchants to " cor- 
ner " gold, silver, and copper, the growth of trade 
in spite of Parliamentary restrictions were among 
the underlying causes which led to the first emis- 
sion of New Jersey's paper money in the year 1709. 
Ostensibly the reason was to be found in the needs 
of government for money during the Canadian 
expedition, some £3,000 being demanded. This, 
however, is but one of a number of elements in the 
financial problem of the day. In the scarcity of 
an available circulating medium the people 
turned to paper money for relief. This, according 
to the colonist idea, accomplished the correction 
of all financial difficulties, for with an abundance 




LIBERTY-CAP CENT. 



254 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



of paper money everyone would bask in the sun- 
light of economic prosperity. 

The situation found its clearest expression in 
the attitude of the Assembly. Between the gov- 
ernors and the lower house there was much ill 
feeling, even bitterness, the Assembly boldly de- 
claring that it would not support government un- 
less bills of credit were authorized. In 1723 a 
compromise was effected, the house agreeing to 
sustain the civil and military list for ten years 
provided a stock of paper money was placed in 
circtilation. Forty thousand pounds in bills of 
various denominations was emitted from the 
press, four thousand pounds being paid to the 
East and West Jersey treasurers for the redemp- 
tion of old bills. The remainder was placed in the 
hands of county loan commissioners, who lent the 
money on real estate mortgage and on deposits 
of plate, for a period not exceeding twelve years, 
at five per cent, per annum. With this act came 
a temporary relief, particularly as the taxpayers 
had previously placed in the collectors' hands 
jewels and plate in payment of assessments. Sim- 
ilar legislation increased the issues, by 1776, to 
the amount of about £600,000. 

The natural effect of overproduction of paper 
money was in a depreciated currency. The bills 
circulating in East Jersey were affected by New 
York rates, where, according to the German trav- 






Pit' ">i 

5 <>* , 









s 

^^y ^ 



No. ^SS'^t 







Six 2)0r:easfl§. 

TBISBaUnUtUjthi 

SIX SPANISH KULXEO 
DOLLARS, or th« 
VilfethfrMf \nG0U3 
orSILVBRonordmf to 
aScjolutim of CON' 
CRESS ii>illdli»t Phi- 



nx DOLLARS 






m 












ONY AND AS A STATE 255 

eller, Ebelin, the guinea was valued at £1.15, 
while in West Jersey Philadelphia rates of the 
guinea at £1.14 caused still another standard of 
exchange. Nor was this effect merely local. Its 
international aspect is reflected in the statement 
of Governor Morris that New Jersey bills of ex- 
change for £100 sold at sixty per cent, in London 
during 1741, and according to other authorities 
had little or no market upon the Continent. 

With a depreciated paper currency and a 
paucity of specie New Jersey entered upon the 
Kevolution. During that period the pamphlet 
laws teem with legislation designed to sustain, by 
acts establishing rates, the constant issues of bills 
of credit. Both the paper money of Congress and 
of New Jersey went upon a downward course of 
depreciation. The operations of the laws of sup- 
ply and demand, rising above all considerations 
of patriotism, of devotion, of self-sacrifice, could 

not stem the current. New Jersey suffered bitter- /^^W^^ ^- >y 

ly, in spite of an earnest effort in 1779, when the 
most vicious element of the paper currency wasfc\; 
withdrawn by a law of June 8th. By this act, in ^^ 
accordance with a resolve of the Continental Con- 
gress, all bills struck on or before April 19, 1775, the -pinf.-tkee eniixiN<. 
were continued as legal tender, except for taxes, 
only until September 1, 1779, and after the 1st of 
January, 1780, were declared to be irredeemable. 

The utter hopelessness of any redemption of 




256 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

continental currency appeared early in 1781, when 
the bills of the United States ceased to circulate. 
Recognizing this fact, the Legislature of New 
Jersey on January 5, 1781, declared that conti- 
nental currency should be a legal tender only at 
current rates. In June, and frequently thereafter, 
a scale of depreciation was established for the ad- 
justment of debts previously contracted. The pe- 
riod of the confederation was passed by New Jer- 
sey in an heroic endeavor to raise revenues for the 
payment of the debts of the United States. 

Closely associated with the subject of money 
in New Jersey is the question of counterfeiting. 
Before 1709 the operations of counterfeiters were 
limited. There was little chance of imitating for- 
eign coin then in circulation, inasmuch as metal 
and alloy were extremely difficult to obtain by 
those likely to commit crime; moreover, when 
money was used it was subjected to test, owing 
to its comparative infrequency. An examination 
of court records shows but few indictments for 
this crime, although a few cases occurred in Bur- 
lington for the lesser offenses of " clipping " and 
" sweating." 

Nevertheless as early as 1683 the West Jersey 
Assembly recognized by the passing of a statute 
that illegal practices, to a degree, were prevalent. 
The act in its preamble states that : " Forasmuch 
^s and complaints of late have 




^';0 N F P E N N r.o,> 

'-^ ^Printed b> liuiin UAr»»i, y^^uT-Tflr* tf' — . 



ONY AND AS A STATE 257 



been made of a suspicion of new money being- 
coined, stamped or counterfieted of the Spanish 
and New England coin or of its being spread with- 
in this Province to the injury and abuse thereof 
and of the neighbour Provinces," it was enacted 
" that strict and diligent enquiry be made for the 
finding out such person or persons who have been 
guilty thereof, and to apprehend such offender and 
offenders, and that a grand inquest shall be there- 
upon impannelled for the searching into the same, 
that so such person and persons as shall be found 
guilty thereof may receive such punishment as by 
the court shall be adjudged." 

The introduction, in 1709, of poorly printed bills 
of credit, the ease with which they could be coun- 
terfeited, the secret recesses of the hill country 
of Northern New Jersey, the wilderness of the 
" Pines," the nearness of New York and Philadel- 
phia, where counterfeit bills of credit could be 
passed, made New Jersey a locality pecul^ 

fitted for counterfeiting operations. That 

bills, printed from type, w^ere counterfeited is <^^ (~ ^ ^ ^ ' '^Cf 
proven by many indictments in the records of "^^{f-w'JLi^v^lKlSS^ 
Supreme Court and from the reports of hangiii^&n;rtotK£-FoiIifforQiiiibe.mrsiu«^ 
for the offense, printed in contemporaneous neW§^^;° r'T='^V^^"'*'"^'^^«V 
papers. There was also legislation upon the nfa&-r<iirxftt:.tokwn.at»lLPublui!.payTn' 
ter, an act of March 1, 1774, enforceable for sefi'-V.'rl'JrNri:;'^! 
years, being typical. FeWiryiKftK.rdvx^oc^By OdUrai 

The statute provided for the punishment Q|^^^^j2;^;^.^. 




,.\IKRICAN PAPEK MONKY 

(B«duo»d.) 



258 



XEAY JEK^^EY AS A CO 



,>^>'M, 



^S'^^i^K 



'^\-v^r^' 



COPPER TOKEN. 



" Counterfeiters of foreign Gold or Silver Coin cu 
rent within the Colony of New Jersey." The o 
fender was to be " whipped, branded with the le 
ter R in the brawn of the left thumb, by an Ire 
sufficiently hot to make a lasting mark, fined, ii 
prisoned, pilloried or cropped, or shall have oi 
or more of these Punishments at the Discretion 
the Court." For the second olBfense he was a 
judged guilty of felony without benefit of clerg 
and sent to a future home where counterfeitii 
was not a necessary means of livelihood. For t] 
illegal reproduction and passing of paper mon( 
the phrase " To Counterfeit is Death " is so f 
miliar as to scarcely need repetition. 

The minting of the " Horse Head " coppers w 
the cause for legislation in 1787, which had for i 
object the prevention of " Circulation of bad ai 
light Coppers " in New Jersey. By its terms a: 
one who passed or offered to pass any coppe 
other than those made by the State coiners was 
forfeit ten times the value of the copper so issue 
This act did not apply to coppers struck by ord 
of the Congress of the United States. 

Of the money current in New Jersey previous 
the opening of the nineteenth century but f( 
specimens, either of bills of credit or coins, i 
main outside the limits of private and public c 
lections. Much of the paper money was destroy 
by redemption, more by fire, decay, and the n 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



259 



ages of rats and moths, while of the specie, thou- 
sands of foreign coins were melted and converted 
into federal currency when the United States 
mint wais opened in Philadelphia. 




TWO POUNDS. 
T>r^ Ueto of tflf Colony of 

^ NfW-tork, tl)10 BitL ftftllbe 
recerved in. all PaymtntJ in Hm Ti'tafitiy^ 

for TWO POUNDS, 

TTEW-rOKK, n f 

Vebrwcy ifr, 1771. ^^r* A*«l«»f 



O^'^d^O 










COLONIAL CURRENCY. 



CHAPTER XV 

The Genes iies, Cities, and 

XUVViNfc^illPS 



UPON the 13th of November, 1675, the 
first counties within the limits of 
the State were created bj act of the 
Legislature of East Jersey, upon 
the plea of the necessity for erect- 
ng county courts. The statute, although indefi- 
lite in its description of boundaries, clearly states 
hat two such courts should be held each year in 
Bergen and its adjacent plantations, in Elizabeth- 
own and Newark, in Woodbridge and Piscata- 
vay, and in the two towns of Navesink. To these 
'our counties no names were given, nor were their 
imits defined until March, 1682, when Bergen, 
3ssex, Middlesex, and Monmouth were set off by 
lame. 

In the act of the East Jersey Legislature creat- 
ng these territorial subdivisions, Bergen was de- 
ined as embracing all of what is now Hudson 
(east of the Hackensack River) and a portion of 
nodern Bergen County. Essex comprised modern 
Essex, Union, part of Passaic, part of Hudson, a 
greater part of Bergen, and a portion of Somerset 
Dounty. Middlesex is not concisely bounded, but 
included more territory than the present county 
3f that name, while the limits of Monmouth were 
largely identical with the present Counties of Mon- 
mouth and Ocean. 

The result of this lack of legislative perspicuity 
was immediate confusion. To the New England 



264 NEW JERSEY AS A OOL 

element in East Jersey the county was not a polit- 
ical unit, their activities as citizens centering in 
the villages and towns. As these communities 
were widely separated, the county became largely 
a generic term, comprehending those places whose 
judicial interests were similar, or which were in 
political relationship. 

In May, 1688, the settlers in Middlesex, on the 
" uppermost Part of the Raritan River," were set 
off into the county called Somerset, a loosely 
bounded body politic. The reason assigned was 
because of different methods of husbandry and 
of the " frequent Floods that carry away their 
Fences on their Meadows, the only arable Land 
they have, and so by consequence their interest is 
divided from the other Inhabitants of said 
County." 

In West Jersey the organization of the county 
was upon a somewhat different basis. While the 
East Jersey county system sought primarily' to 
bring together towns having common interests in 
judicial matters, the West Jersey county had so- 
cial and economic causes for its creation. The 
county of West Jersey was a distinct political 
unit; all its towns drew their inspirations from 
the shire town, and individuals associated them- 
selves politically with their counties rather than 
with their villages. The plantation, as in Vir- 
ginia, was the nucleus, the county the consolida- 



OXY AND AS A STATE 



265 



tion, of plantations, and Burlington, the capital, 
the representative niunifipality of the entire prov- 
ince. The counties of West Jersey grew out of a 
somewhat curious sub-division of the province, au- 
thorized by the commissioners during the month 
of February, 1681. The provincial surveyor was 
directed to divide the river front between the 
Assanpink Creek and Cape May into Tenths, each 
containing ten proprietaries. This was accordingly 
done, but upon examination it was found that the 
surveyor, having located his sixth Tenth within 
the area of the present County of Cumberland, was 
unable to survey the remaining four Tenths with- 
in the limited peninsula of Cape May. But as the 
territory was unoccupied the plan met all necessi- 
ties of the case among the up-river settlements, 
which sent representatives to the Assembly from 
the various Tenths for several years. The First 
and Second Tenths, known respectively as the 
Yorkshire and London Tenths, became the Coun- 
ty of Burlington, the Third and Fourth Tenths 
the County of Gloucester, and the Fifth and Sixth 
Tenths the County of Salem, also including the 
present County of Cumberland. But the erection 
of Tenths did not entirely meet with the approval 
of the people of the third and fourth divisions of 
West Jersey. In May. 1686, the residents between 
Pe|isaT]^TT_a Ti i1 Oldm nirs Cre£k-.-^&S' aad?- 

'-^a^ a •• demct^rrKki^CJiftCllion- 




^^=EI^ 



1 



^%. 



266 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



wealth," declared themselves to be a county, es- 
tablished courts at Axwamus and Red Bank, and 
provided for the establishment of a local judiciary. 
This was the only county in New Jersey deriving 
its existence from the direct action of its own 
people. 

In November, 1692, Cape May was erected into 
a county, " being a place well situate for trade," 
its boundaries including Maurice River Township 
in the present County of Cumberland and the 
southwest portion of the modern County of At- 
lantic. 

From this period until the surrender of proprie- 
tary government the adjustment of county lines 
occupied the attention of the West Jersey Legis- 
lature. In 1692 the line between Burlington and 
Gloucester was in dispute. In 1694 the bounda- 
ries of Burlington were defined, embracing the 
territory between the Assanpink or Derwent 
Creek on the north and the Pensauken or Crop- 
well Creek on the south, including two Tenths. 
Gloucester extended from the Pensauken to Old- 
man's or Berkeley Creek, also including two 
Tenths, while Salem extended from Oldman's 
Creek to Back or Tweed Creek. The inhabitants 
above the Assanpink Creek, in the vicinity of " ye 
ffalles of ye De La Ware," were annexed to Bur- 
lington County, and the inhabitants of Great Egg 

irbor region were placed under the jurisdiction 




^- ' — jr? .' 



AN OLD NKW JERSEY VILLAGE. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 267 

of Gloucester County, they formerly having been 
within the limits of Cape May. 

But such organization of counties was, at best, 
a makeshift. What with the uncertainties of 
legislative descriptions, the fact that much of the 
colony had never been settled, much less sur- 
veyed, and in view of the changes in government, 
the Legislature on the 21st of January, 1709-10, 
redefined the boundaries of the counties. There 
were then in East Jersey Bergen, Essex, Somer- 
set, Middlesex, and Monmouth, and in West Jer- 
sey Burlington, Gloucester, Salem, and Cape May. 

During the subsequent portion of the colonial 
period Hunterdon County, embracing the settle- 
ments above Burlington, was created March 11, 
1713-14; Morris County was set off from "the upper 
parts of" Hunterdon on March 15, 1738-39; Cum- 
berland County was organized from Salem Janu- 
ary 19, 1747-48; while Sussex was taken away from 
Morris June 8, 1753, Morris, Hunterdon, and Sus- 
sex lying in both East and West Jersey. Boundary 
disputes were also settled between Somerset, Mid- 
dlesex, and Monmouth in March, 1713-14, between 
Essex and Somerset in 1741, and between Morris 
and Somerset in 1749. 

In the naming of the colonial counties of New 
Jersey their nomenclature was largely derived 
from English sources. But Bergen, meaning 
" hills," and Cape May, in honor of the navigator 



268 NEW JERSEY AS A OOL 

Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, are of Dutch origin. 
Middlesex, Monmouth, Essex, Somerset, Sussex, 
Burlington, and Gloucester revive recollections of 
the homes over sea and serve as illustrations of 
the intense English influence which so dominated 
New Jersey's development. Two colonial govern- 
ors of New Jersey, Eobert Hunter and Lewis Mor- 
ris, have been commemorated in Hunterdon and 
Morris Counties, while the atrocities of the Duke 
of Cumberland, at Culloden, are recalled by the 
county named in his honor. To the fertile land of 
the Fenwick grant members of the Society of 
Friends gave the name Salem, meaning " Peace," 
a word of Hebraic stock, but which has become 
permanently incorporated among Anglo-Saxon 
place names. 

Of the subsequent county names but little need 
be said. In 1824 Warren and in 1838 Mercer Coun- 
ties were erected and named in honor of Generals 
Warren and Mercer, famous in the American 
Revolution. Hudson, in 1840, commemorates the 
adventurous discoverer. Camden, in 1844, recalled 
the name of the Earl of Camden, while Passaic, 
set off in 1837, is the only territorial sub-division 
whose name was taken from Indian sources. At- 
lantic, also created in 1837, and Ocean, established 
in 1850, are indicative of that seeming lack of dis- 
tinctive material in place-naming so characteristic 
of many parts of the United States. The patriotic 



ONY AND AS A STATE 269 

spirit prevalent in the eastern part of New Jersey 
toward the opening of the Civil War led to the 
choice of the name Union for a new county erected 
in 1857. 

It will be noticed that the creation of counties 
in New Jersey occurred sporadically. Thus from 
1G92, the date of the erection of Cape May Coun- 
ty, until the establishment of Hunterdon Coun- 
ty, in 1713-14, was a period of twenty-two years. 
Another quarter of a century elapsed ere a new 
county was created, Morris, in 1738-39. Inside 
of fourteen years both Cumberland and Sussex 
were added to the list. From 1753 to 1824 no 
counties were set off, although during the period 
of seventy-one years several applications were 
made to the Legislature to accomplish this end. 
Warren, in 1824, was the first of the post-Revolu- 
tionary counties. The twenty years from 1837 to 
1857 saw seven counties come into existence and 
five of these within seven years, so rapid was the 
growth of the State. Since 1857 no counties have 
been added to the complement of twenty-one. 

In the years following the restoration of the 
House of Stuart great things were expected con- 
cerning His Majesty's colonies in North America, 
and from none more than from New Jersey. 
Vague but fairly well authenticated rumors had 
reached London that New Jersey was exceedingly 
fertile, and a most pleasant land to.l^k upon. 



% 



-VjI 



■'V/y-' 



270 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

It was the province of Nova Csesarea, it was said, 
whose broad acres would fill England's granaries, 
w^hose forests would furnish timber and the skins 
of wild beasts, whose mines would yield copper, 
iron, and mayhap gold and silver, whose harbors 
would be havens where ships trading from Green- 
land to the Spanish Main would find safe anchor- 
age and a good market. In these dreams of the 
future it was not beyond the range of possibility 
that, in the attractive though unexplored wilder- 
ness, cities would arise rivaling in importance 
those of the Hanseatic League. To prepare for 
such conditions the Lords Proprietors in their 
" Concessions and Agreements " directed the As- 
sembly, in 1664, that, for the future well ordering 
of towns and their trade, that body should " cre- 
ate and appoint such and so many Ports, Har- 
bours, Creeks, and other Places for the convenient 
lading and unlading of Goods and Merchandizes 
* * * With such Jurisdictions, Privileges, and 
Franchises to such Ports, &c., belonging as they 
shall judge most conducing to the General good 
of the said Plantation or Province," and to incor- 
porate with charters and privileges " Forts, Fort- 
resses, Castles, Cities, Corporations, Boroughs, 
Towns, Villages, and other Places of Strength and 
Defense." 

Charged as these directions were with the spirit 
of a decadent feudalism, the necessity for such a 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



271 



course became later apparent. " Forts, Fort- 
resses, Castles" there were none, nor did the 
" other Places of Strength and Defense " appear 
to exist worthy the attention of the Legislature. 
The municipal government of Bergen had been 
organized upon the 5th of September, 1661, and a 
schout, an officer holding in part the position of 
sheriff, judge, and district-attorney, had been se- 
lected by the Dutch authorities at New Amster- 
dam. One of the earliest acts of the proprietors 
was to confirm the existing town government in 
1665, and to grant to its inhabitants a charter of 
more than usual liberality. The towns, or more 
properly villages, then settled in New Jersey, lay 
in the vicinity of New York Harbor, and wert» 
Elizabethtown, Newark, Woodbridge, and Mid- 
dletown. Piscataway and Shrewsbury were mere 
settlements. In 1683 Deputy Governor Lawry 
was directed to secure a charter for the town of 
Perth Amboy for the purpose of stimulating local 
trade and the prevention of the custom of sending 
goods to the New York market — a very early and 
pertinent illustration of the centralizing influence 
of the m 



In October, 1693, the town of 
Burlingt )n :^^a^5^afitad alcJiarter, "not Anjp^hing 
greater efficacy to promote Trade and 



being of 

Businesslin the said Town than the indult of such, 
invite active and ingenious Men 
nd coinhabit therein and adven 



esa 



Priviled 
to resort Itthi 

- 1 < 



f ?•■ 




K).\ 



^.■ 




VIEW ACROSS THE NORTH RIVER 
IN 1797. 



272 NEW JERSEY AS A OOL 

ture their Stocks and Estates upon the issue of 
Providence in the way of Tfade." With such a 
practical and pious admixture of dollars and dog- 
ma in the way of a legislative invocation, Bur- 
lington City grew apace and became a formidable 
rival of Perth Amboy. Salem in the meantime 
had become a place of commercial importance, 
had been created a port of entry in 1682, and in 
the same year had been allowed a market. 

During the period following the establishment 
of direct government by the crown Perth Amboy 
grew in importance so much that on May 22, 
1718, a new charter was granted the town, a like 
favor being extended to Newark on April 27, 1713, 
when John Tl-eat, Joseph Harrison, James Nut- 
man, Eliphalet Johnson, John Cooper, John Mor- 
ris, Joseph Craine, Thomas Davis, Nathaniel 
Wheeler, and George Harrison were named as in- 
corporators. The growth of the river trade, and 
the fact that the city was the meeting place of 
the Legislature and the Supreme Court, led to the 
granting of a new charter for Burlington, May 7, 
1734. Trenton was next chartered in 1745, but in 
1750 the very generous provisions of the docu- 
ment were surrendered, and the village became 
once more a part of the township of the same 
name. 

But in all instances the elaborate provisions of 
these colonial charters, based upon English prec- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 273 



edents and designed for English needs, were not 
well fitted for the communities for which they 
were formulated. The largest towns of New Jer- 
sey were villages at best, in nearly every case sur- 
rounded or partially surrounded by meadow and 
waste land. The communal form of town-building 
characterized them all — a small centralized popu- 
lation, the nearby meadows, a pasturage for cattle, 
often in common, and the outlying plantations. 
It was but a step from the city to the country, 
when the members of Assembly could leave the 
capital at Burlington or Perth Amboy, and in an 
hour's horseback ride hunt over new cleared fields 
or through the deepest woods. 

The colonial charter of the city of Trenton is 
typical. The underlying purpose of these docu- 
ments was unquestionably to give certain privi- 
leges to market towns and divert trade to common 
centers. The officials were usually appointed by 
the representative of the crown, only the minor 
officers of the city or borough being popularly 
selected, the voters being a class of citizens pos- 
sessing property qualifications. 

To East Jersey the settlers brought the con- 
cept of the town or township as a political unit. 
But the methods of accurately defining these 
towns gave rise to much confusion. Practically 
nothing was done to remedy this fault until the 
Legislature, in September, 1692, provided that the 



274 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

inhabitants of each of the four counties, under 
a warrant of two justices of the peace, were em- 
powered to ascertain and set the limits and 
bounds of the towns (townships), and to make re- 
turn thereof. In an act, also passed in 1692, pro- 
viding for the " raising of Money for their Ma- 
jesty's Service," the following are mentioned as 
towns : Piscataway and the out plantations on the 
south side of the Raritan from South River to 
Somerset; Perth Amboy and the out plantations 
from Chesquakes to the South River; Woodbridge 
and all out plantations in Middlesex not before 
named; Elizabethtown and its out plantations; 
Newark and its out plantations; " Acquickana- 
nick," New Barbadoes, and the west side of Hack- 
ensack; Hackensack and its out plantations; Ber- 
gen and its out plantations; Middletown and its 
out plantations, and Shrewsbury and its out plan- 
tations. 

In October, 1693, was passed " An Act for di- 
viding Each County into Townships," supplanting 
the legislation of the previous year. The bounds 
of the townships are more or less clearly set out. 
In Bergen County were the townships of Hacken- 
sack and the corporate town of Bergen; in Essex 
County " Acquickananick " and New Barbadoes 
as one township, Newark, and Elizabethtown; in 
Middlesex County, the corporate town of Wood- 

*erth Amboy; in Mon- 




A rftTnNrAT. tka set. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 275 

mouth County Middletown, Shrewsbury, and 
Freehold. The County of Somerset was also con- 
sidered as a tow^nship for constabulary purposes. 

But while the Legislature thus defined these 
sub-divisions it must be remembered that they 
were practically established, by custom, as con- 
stabularies. Indeed, in West Jersey this method 
of creating townships from constabularies was 
early practiced. The manuscript pages of the 
court book of Burlington contain, among other 
matters, the record of the courts of quarter ses- 
sions. At such a court held at Burlington Novem- 
ber 6, 1688, these respective constabularies or 
townships in the county were returned by the 
Grand Inquest and confirmed by the court: Not- 
tingham, Chesterfield, Mansfield, Springfield, Wil- 
lingboro, Northampton, Chester, and Evesham. 
In 1723, according to Beesley's " Sketch of the 
Early History of Cape May County," the court di- 
vided Cape May into upper, middle, and lower 
precincts or townships. 

From time to time the Legislature, after the 
union of 1702, declared what should constitute a 
township, particularly in the act creating the 
County of Cumberland, although in the statute 
whereby the County of Sussex was erected seven 
commissioners, chosen by the people, were em- 
powered to divide the county into precincts. 

To the methods of creating townships by legis- 



276 



NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 



lative action, by order of the court, and by com- 
missioners there was a fourth plan — that of estab- 
lishment by royal charter and patent, under the 
great seal and approval of the governor. Two 
conspicuous cases, the charters for Springfield and 
Chester Townships, Burlington County, both 
dated January, 1712-13, are practically confirma- 
tory of the court order of 1688. An examination 
of the records of the office of the secretary of 
state discloses a number of these townships 
erected by royal authority, among them being 
June 8, 1708, Township of Amwell; July 15, 1730, 
Township of Reading, Hunterdon County; April 
4, 1749, Township of Bridgewater, Somerset Coun- 
ty; April 4, 1749, Township of Bedminster, Somer- 
set County; March 9, 1750-1, Township of Wind- 
sor, Middlesex County; March 11, 1755, Township 
of Hopewell; May 24, 1760, Township of Bernards- 
ton, Somerset County; May 24, 1764, Township of 
New Pile's Grove, Salem County, cancelled and 
new patent issued October 29, 1765; June 17, 1767, 
Township of Upper Alloway's Creek, Salem Coun- 
ty; March 7, 1767, Township of Woolwich between 
Homan's Creek and Raccoon Creek, being the 
lower part of Greenwich Township. 




''mfm^s^->i, 



THE CITY HALL AT THE HAGUE. 



Tk. 



To THE settler in New Jersey seeking 
a home in a land whose very bound- 
aries were unknown the vast and 
barren wilderness of island, beach, 
and marsh, which forms a barrier 
against the ravages of the sea, possessed neither 
artistic interest nor intrinsic worth. ^ From the be- 
ginnings of State life until well beyond the middle 
of the nineteenth century the sea coast of New 
Jersey was a terra incognita to the residents of 
the cities, a hopeless waste to the dweller upon 
the upland, and a grave to the imagination of 
the captains of sailing craft. 

The beaches, as such, composed the shore lines 
of the old Counties of Monmouth, Burlington, 
Gloucester, and Cape May; the mainland extend- 
ing to the sea only in that portion of the present 
County of Monmouth lying between Deal and 
Point Pleasant. South thereof the long, narrow 
islands, separated from the firm ground by end- 
less acres of marsh, bays, and lagoons, stretched 
to Cape May, broken only by shifting inlets 
through which the ebbing and flooding tides raced 
with terrific velocity. 

The problem of securing some profit from the 
beaches was early presented to the settler. Cov- 
ered with coarse herbage, the farmers upon the 
mainland, seeking opportunities for the pasturage 
for cattle, sent them in flat-bottomed scows across 



280 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




the lagoons, and, after branding their cattle, 
turned them loose to roam at will over the wind- 
swept dunes. While the beaches soon passed into 
private ownership, under the principle that no 
land was too poor to be without a proprietor, there 
was but slight recognition of individual metes and 
bounds. Faulty surveying, changes in natural 
monuments, alterations in contour caused by tides 
and subsidence, threw proprietary lines into the 
greatest confusion. Practically the beaches were 
commons, and the doctrine became prevalent that 
any colonist had the natural right to pasture his 
cattle on an adjacent beach although he might 
not own a foot of soil where his animals fed. In 
the " round up " of the cattle there were frequent 
" strays," whence sprang the " wild cattle," the 
subject of so many romantic tales. 

The beaches furnished a coarse kind of grass, 
useful for bedding in stables, while from the 
marshes were obtained " black grass " and other 
kinds of graminae whose habitat is adjacent to 
salt water. Along the " shore " the salt grasses 
furnished practically the only food of the farm ani- 
mals during the winter months. Except, however, 
for local consumption, the natural products of the 
beaches and marshes had but little value, owing 
to the expense and trouble of transportation. 

Upon Long Beach, in the present County of 
Ocean, and upon Seven and Five Mile Beaches, in 



AN EARLY CEDAR SWAMP. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 281 

the County of Cape May, there was a luxuriant 
growth of red cedar, the Cape May beaches also 
being cropped with oak, gum, holly, and other 
woods characteristic of the southern portion of 
the State. This standing timber had commercial 
value, small indeed, when like trees were abun- 
dant upon the mainland, but increased as the 
growth upon the firm ground was cut for market. 
Utilized for shipbuilding, the beach oaks, famous 
for their endurance, were sought by naval con- 
structors, while the fragrant red cedar was con- 
verted into chests and casks and employed for 
other domestic purposes. Yet during the colonial 
period the beaches, owing to their remoteness, in- 
accessibility, and dreariness, were considered 
rather as hindrances to a man's estate, no one 
dreaming of the day when a city population should 
demand them for summer playgrounds to gratify 
human needs and human pleasures. 

To the hunter, accompanied by the half-breed 
Indian or negro, the beaches were a paradise. 
Wild fowl were in such abundance that even the 
apparently excessive statements of the early writ- 
ers fall short of the truth. In the waters of the 
bays were fish " in prodigious shoals," says quaint 
old Gabriel Thomas, while oysters, clams, and 
Crustacea were to be had at all seasons. Although 
a man might be poor along the sea coast, the very 
prodigality of nature prevented him from starv- 



282: NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

ing — a prodigality woefully abused, and even yet 
marvelled at by the casual visitor. 

Upon the mainland lay the " Pines," a vast 
irregular shaped tract of land clothed with pines, 
oak, isolated clumps of chestnut, and embracing 
tracts of white cedar, gum, and other woods. Cov- 
ering the southeastern portion of the County of 
Monmouth, practically all of Ocean and Atlantic 
Counties, the larger half of Burlington County, 
the eastern parts of Camden, Salem, Gloucester, 
and Cumberland Counties, and the upper portion 
of Cape May County, this wooded area stood as a 
wall between the settlements on the Delaware 
and the sea. In the almost imperial holdings of 
the boards of proprietors of East and West Jersey 
the " Pines " were considered as being of com- 
paratively little value. A generation elapsed be- 
fore the forests in the immediate vicinage of the 
first settlements were cleared, and before any de- 
mand was made upon the timbered area in the in- 
terior. 

The very abundance of wood led to its waste. 
From the Indian the settler learned the method 
of the quickest extermination of the forests — the 
use of fire. Particularly was this true in West 
New Jersey, and so great were the disasters re- 
sulting from conflagration that the Legislature as 
early as 1683 prohibited any one, under penalty, 
from " firing the woods to the prejudice of the in- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 283 

habitants of this Province " on or before the 20th 
of March. The act permitted owners to " fire 
within their own bounds, for their own conven- 
iency, who are also to take care that the fire run 
not out of their own bounds, nor prejudice any 
other person." Two years before, the Legislature 
had passed an act providing a punishment for 
timber thieving from surveyed land. 

By 1700 the " Pines " had been crossed by sur- 
veyors, and much of the timber had been pur- 
chased from the proprietors. Thousands of acres 
still remained in the hands of the boards of East 
and West Jersey, but the work of destruction had 
commenced. It was the story of devastation and 
of criminal waste. Constant fires during the 
spring and summer ranged across the colony until 
fuel was exhausted or rains put out the flames. 
Forest economics was an unknow^n science, the 
purchaser seeing in his tract simply an opportu- 
nity to secure a yield of useful materials. Modern 
forestry, embracing such elements as an appeal to 
the artistic sense, a resort of health-value to in- 
valids, and a regulator of water flow, was beyond 
the comprehension of those who purchased pro- 
prietary rights. M. 

The sreed of owners and the thieving of lawless 
persons became so great as to lead to legislative 
interference. In March, 1713-14, an act was passed 
prohibiting the common practices of stealing tlm- 




m 



A FOKl-.-^l VISTA. 



284 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

ber, cedar, pine staves, and poles, and of boring for 
and extracting turpentine. The statute also for- 
bade the exportation of pipe and hogshead staves 
to neighboring provinces, owing to the rapid de- 
struction of the forests, — legislation which re- 
mained in force practically throughout the colo- 
nial period. In 1743 an act was passed, applicable 
to the eastern division of the province, laying 
duties upon logs, timber, planks, vessel supplies, 
staves, and heading, except firewood, " exported 
to any of His Majesty's Colonies upon the Conti- 
nent of America," which act was also made ap- 
plicable to the common lands within the limits of 
the charter of Bergen Township. To further pro- 
tect the forests, in 1772 a statute provided that 
cullers should be appointed to inspect staves, 
heading, hoops, shingles, boards, and plank " ex- 
ported beyond sea," — legislation necessitated by 
the development of the West India trade, where 
cedar and pine were exchanged for rum, sugar, 
and molasses. 

Throughout the " Pines " the sawmills heralded 
the advent of permanent settlement. These mills 
were erected as early as 1700-1725, and furnished 
the beginnings of some colonial fortunes. Mainly 
they were operated by agents of owners, the pro- 
prietors living on the plantations facing the Dela- 
ware and its tributary streams. Narrow, wind- 
ing roads, laid out along the lines of the least nat- 




AMONG THE " PWRS 



ONY AND AS A STATE 285 



ural resistance, penetrated the forests and, start- 
ing from larger arteries of travel, ended in cul-de- 
sacs surrounded by timber. From these roads 
many of the highways of South Jersey have been 
evolved. 

Alongside of the large lumbering industry stood 
smaller attempts to create wealth. In Gloucester 
County, before 1700, one Robert Styles, a worker 
in pitch tar and rosin, was accounted by a con- 
temporaneous writer " an Excellent Artist in that 
sort of Work, for he delivers it as clear as any 
Gum Arabic." There was a considerable trade in 
" fat pine knots " for fuel and illumination, the 
latter use passing away upon the general introduc- 
tion of cheap candles and illuminating fluids. 
Others followed Styles in tar making, but later 
the industry languished, to be revived during the 
Civil War. when the tar kilns partially supplied 
a portion of the demand caused by cutting off the 
Southern product. For the old-fashioned spin- 
ning wheels persimmon wood was used, while to- 
bacco pipes were and are still made from the butts 
of the laurel, commonly known as " nigger heads." 
The irregularly grained and proverbially tough 
wood of the sour gum was employed for wagon 
hubs, blocks for the manufacture of beaver hats, 
for mauls and other utensils on the farms and for 
appliances on coastwise vessels. 

Sumac leaves were ground and used for their 



286 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

tannin-possessing properties. Both red cedar and 
sassafras oils were extracted along the coast, 
while the wild cherry was extensively employed as 
a medicinal agent. 

Among the colonists furniture made of native 
wood was common, it being a custom to employ 
white holly in inlaying mahogany and rosewood 
desks and card tables. Throughout the southern 
section of the State the old-fashioned desks, or 
" secretaries " as they were called, were frequent- 
ly ornamented with the names of the owner and 
dates of possession. 

The manufacture of pot and pearl ashes was 
also attempted in the colony. John Keble, of 
West Jersey, asked the assistance of the British 
government, in 1708, in the stimulation of his 
potash industry in New Jersey, hoping thereby to 
secure a valuable trade and drive the Russian 
product from the English market; but little or 
nothing came of the appeal or of Keble's venture. 
Shortly before the Revolution attempts were made 
to revive this industry on an extensive scale in 
Northern New Jersey. 

The " Pines " also constituted a vast game pre- 
serve during the colonial period, both birds and 
beasts surviving the constant fires and the de- 
structive slaughter of gunners. Wolves were so 
abundant that a reward of 10s. was offered by the 
Legislature of West Jersey in May, 1682, for every 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



287 



head of that animal, similar legislation having 
been enacted in East Jersey in 1675. The com- 
bined efforts of the Indians and the peltry traders 
slowly but effectually exterminated most of the 
smaller mammalia having commercial value. Bear 
disappeared, then beaver, and lastly deer. Strin- 
gent legislation early protected the latter animal, 
but greed and a demand for food supply rose su- 
perior to the acts of the House of Assembly and 
council. Throughout the colonial period other 
small animals were abundant, some of those par- 
ticularly destructive or obnoxious remaining un- 
til the present day. 

Among the settlers in the " Pines " and those 
along the sea coast there has been a contention 
concerning the enjoyment of what are known as 
" natural privileges," — the right to fish in the 
waters of the State and to hunt on untenanted 
land. This contention has given rise to litigation, 
and has influenced the spirit of much of the so- 
called " fish and game " legislation. There was 
a color of right in the claim so far as West Jer- 
sey was concerned. Under the " Concessions and 
Agreements " of 1676 to the inhabitants was given 
the liberty of fishing in the Delaware or on the 
sea coast, as well as of hunting and killing deer, 
wild beasts, or fowl upon any lands unsurveyed, 
unenclosed, or unplanted. It was an easy tran- 
sition to a contention that the liberty extended to 




■•'•??3l^vi?llBBwiK«w«"owifc*. 



288 



NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 



^rf-J^-^^SSTJCSfSL 



untenanted land, the mind of the uneducated 
hunter not drawing any fine distinctions in use of 
terms. To him, if no one lived upon the land it 
had no owner who had any interest in the preser- 
vation of game, and any right to secure food, once 
granted, was inalienable through all periods of 
time. 

The natural conditions of the beaches and the 
" Pines " remained practically unaltered until the 
advent of the railroads. Since the construction 
of the railroads the beaches have acquired new 
uses and a value far out of proportion to their 
intrinsic worth. The " Pines " have changed in 
appearance owing to the constant presence of 
fires and the axe. Already there have arisen in 
the " Pines " Lakewood, furnishing health and 
pleasure during the winter months; Vineland, the 
center of a small fruit industry; Millville, a manu- 
facturing city; and Woodbine and Alliance, homes 
of the Russian Hebrew colonist. With the con- 
gestion of metropolitan populations that must be 
fed, the clearing of the woods, and the demand for 
accessible land, the solution of the problem of 
the " Pines " will eventually be reached ; but this 
solution must be left to future industrial develop- 
ment. 




CHAPTER XVII 

Inxs, and Taverns 



OF ALL structures, of a distinctively 
secular character, around which 
cling the traditions of colonial life 
in New Jersey, there are none which 
are more replete with association 
than the ordinaries, inns, and taverns. Critics 
have drawn sad pictures of the convivial habits 
of the colonists, yet the excesses once committed 
by no means rob these biuldings of their senti- 
mental interest nor of their historical value. 

During the colonial period of New Jersey the 
inn became a social and political center. Not 
only were these houses designed for the entertain- 
ment of man and the baiting of beast, but they 
served as meeting places for Council and Assem- 
bly, as the temporary executive mansions for the 
governors, as county court houses, polling places, 
school houses, regimental headquarters on train- 
ing days, termini for post and passenger stages, 
and even for the travelling ministers of various 
denominations. Here met the boards of proprie- 
tors of East and West Jersey, here gathered the 
yeomanry to listen to such " news " as the fugitive 
copies of New York and Philadelphia papers con- 
tained, while the county freeholders and town- 
ship officers frequently had no other buildings in 
which business could be transacted. The chief 
and associate justices of the Supreme Court, with 
a retinue of lawyers, in circuit " lodged " in the 




NCH BOWL. 



292 NEW JERBEY AS A COL 

best rooms of the taverns, travellers were wel- 
comed by the host in person, and in the yard were 
to be found prosperous small farmers, artisans, 
laborers, and slaves. As late as the Eevolution 
that unhappy and much abused body, the Conti- 
nental Congress, met in public houses, waiting for 
delayed quorums and grandiloquently discussing 
state affairs over which it had no practical con- 
trol. 

Whatever public life there was in the colony 
found its expression in the tavern, and its keeper 
became a man of more than common influence. 
It was he who first had information concerning 
the actions of the Legislature or the board of 
freeholders; it was he who stood on terms of re- 
spectful intimacy with the lawyers and knew that 
the decision of a tender point in law could only 
be effected after the punch had been well circu- 
lated. To him were referred disputes in cards, 
the price of lottery tickets, or the value of a " like- 
ly " heifer at fair time. He could give information 
either as to the condition of the governor's health 
or where the bills were posted announcing a sher- 
iff's sale of wood lots. His it was to judge human 
nature, to keep an eye for runaway slaves, to care- 
fully watch the travelling mountebank who sped 
away in the darkness without paying his reckon- 
ing, and to pay respectful attention to the ladies, 
who took far less journeys than their descendants 



ONY AND AS A STATE 293 



are now wont to take. As he was the general 
source of information, so was his tavern the resort 
of epicures. The standard of living, as then under- 
stood, found its perfection in the tavern. The best 
was none too good for his guests. 

Venison, bear, wild fowl, and edible domesti- 
cated animals were abundant, and although com- 
mon vegetables and fruits were few, butter a 
rarity, and ice in summer unknown, these deficien- 
cies were supplied by an elaborate list of bever- 
ages now unrecognized by taste or name. That 
reverend author, good old Israel Acrelius, in his 
" History of New Sweden," mentions in 1758 a half 
hundred used in New Jersey, New York, and Penn- 
sylvania. A partial catalogue discloses no less 
than eight wines, together with cherry and cur- 
rant wine of domestic manufacture. Plain, 
royal mulled, and damasked cider, rum, egg 
nog, apple and peach brandy, whisky, mo- 
lasses beer, spruce beer, persimmon beer, 
mead, many varieties of cordials, hot rum 
for funerals, tiff, sillibub, Sampson, and hotch 
potch are a few of the drinks of the time, 
not to mention that famous beverage of the day, 
metheglin or '' perfect love." And when one con- 
siders that, in the olden days, few men " quali- 
fied " or " sophisticated " their liquors, their pow- 
ers of endurance appear all the more ncrtr^prtl^ 

The importance of the tavern iS^^wlL^fe:j^e^ 




'm*rK\ 



A COUNTRY TAVERN. 



294 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




:m^mM^ 



THE 



fact that the regulation of the business of supply- 
ing food and liquors to the public early attracted 
the attention of the Legislature. Contemporane- 
ous with the organization of civil government in 
the province of New Jersey the Assembly of No- 
vember, 1668, " in consideration of the inconven- 
iences that do arise for the want of an ordinary 
in every town," ordered that Bergen, Elizabeth- 
town, Newark, Woodbridge, Middletown, Piscata- 
way, Shrewsbury, and the Delaware River settle- 
ments provide each an inn for the relief and enter- 
tainment of strangers. 

License from the provincial secretary was re- 
quired ere the ordinary-keeper could provide meat, 
drink, and lodging, and none was permitted to 
retail drink under the quantity of two gallons ex- 
;Cept such licensed proprietor. 
-'The need of such general and restrictive legisla- 
pn had become apparent, owing to the lack of 
"any control over those who had previously sold 
malt, spirituous, and vinous liquors. In May, 1668, 
the Legislature had endeavored to correct " that 
beastly vice, drunkenness," by imposing a fine, or 
corporal punishment for the offense, and in case 
of " those unruly and disturbers of the peace " the 
malefactor was to be placed in the stocks until 
sober. " Night walking " after nine o'clock or 
" drinking in any tapp house " were also declared 
to be offenses. The culprit was held for examina- 



Froui this taveru, owned by Colonel William Crane, at 
Elizabethtown Point, President-elect Washington embarked 
on his way to New York for his inauguration. 



OXY AND AS A STATE 295 

tion " till the morning," and if unable to give a 
good account of himself was " bound over to the 
next court." 

But these enactments failed to correct the evils, 
and in 1675 the statute " concerning that beastly 
vice, drunkenness," was reenacted. Intoxication 
increased in the province. Particularly was this 
true as affecting the desecration of Sunday, more 
commonly called in the statutes the Sabbath or 
Lord's Day. Constables, under the act of 
October, 1677, if informed, were required to 
seek out persons misbehaving themselves, 
" namely by staggering, realing, drinking, cursing, 
swearing, quarreling, or singing any vain songs 
or tunes of the same," and set the offenders " in 
the stocks for two whole hours without relief." 
Those who kept places where such disorders oc- 
curred were subjected to fines. 

The sale of drink in private houses, occasioning 
" great exorbitances and drunkenness » * » 
to the dishonor of God, impoverishing the com- 
monwealth, and wrong to several poor persons," 
led to an act of October, 1677, which forbade all 
persons to sell liquors under the quantity of one 
gallon except such person kept a legal ordinary. 
A fine of ten shillings for each offense was dis- 
tributed, when collected, between the informer and 
the poor of the town. At the same session the 
Legislature also regulated the price of liquors and 



296 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

set the following rates upon all ordinary-keepers 
in the matter of food for man and beast : " for 
strong liquors by the gill, ^10.8 the gallon, by the 
quart ^2.6; good wine ^7 the gallon; cyder *^4 the 
quart; a meal for victuals ^8; natural pasture for a 
horse in summer and the like for winter "^6; a 
peck of oats •^O," the proprietor " to be left at lib- 
erty for such as will bespeak their own provision." 
" The Penalty of A Drunkard " is the somewhat 
startling title of the thirteenth chapter of the laws 
passed during a legislative session held in Eliza- 
bethtown in March, 1682. The penalty for the 
offense was placed at five shillings, to be imposed 
on conviction, and the fine was to be devoted to 
the poor fund. If the offender did not pay he or 
she — there were evidently female dipsomaniacs in 
East Jersey — was put in the stocks. The same 
session laws provided against " drinking in any 
ordinary," hunting, and gambling on the Lord's 
Day, while in the same year (1682) "An Act to 
prevent Tipling and other Disorders in Ordinary's 
by Town Dwellers " provided that any innkeepers 
who " trusted " an inhabitant or town dweller to 
small quantities of liquor, above the sum of five 
shillings, should be estopped from recovering the 
debt by suit at law. Contemporaneous legisla- 
tion placed in the hands of two justices of the 
peace the right to grant licenses to inns and tav- 
erns. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 297 

By degrees public sentiment in this matter 
crystallized into general legislation which may be 
found in Chapter VIII of the acts of September- 
October, 1692. By this law all persons were pro- 
hibited from selling vinous or spirituous liquors 
under the quantity of one gallon and malt liquors 
under the quantity of one barrel, unless they were 
licensed by the county justices to keep an ordi- 
nary. The penalty for offending was £5. Per- 
sons licensed gave a bond of £20 " for their orderly 
house keeping." 

Not only did the county justices " appoint the 
number of retailers sufficient for every town," but 
they were likewise " impowered to set the prices 
upon all sorts of liquors retailed." An excise tax 
of four shillings upon each barrel of malt and 
twelve pence upon each gallon of spirits retailed 
was also provided by the act. In October, 1693, 
the excise was removed by Chapter VII of the 
acts, and the governor in place of the justices was 
authorized to license all ordinary-keepers. 

In the western province the Legislature found 
less occasion to deal with the liquor traffic or to 
regulate the ordinaries. These matters were 
largely relegated to the county courts, those of 
Salem, Gloucester, and Burlington regulating the 
rates at which liquor should be sold and pro- 
visions and lodging furnished. The widespread 
influence of the Society of Friends and their early 



298 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



declarations by their meetings upon the subject 
of the immoderate use of intoxicating liquors 
were restraining influences throughout West Jer- 
sey. If such a course of a dominant religious so- 
ciety did not create a prohibitive sentiment it at 
least led to peace and good order, which East Jer- 
sey endeavored to secure by sumptuary legisla- 
tion. 

One statute in West Jersey deals with the sub- 
ject. This is Chapter VII of the laws of 1683, 
which provides that the drunkard shall pay a fine 
of three shillings four pence for his offense, or sit 
in the stocks for a period not exceeding five hours. 
But even this legislation did not restrain one Peter 
Groom, who, upon a May day, 1694, stood before 
the justices of Burlington court " with his Hatt 
on w'h other Contemptuous behaviour " and was 
therefor fined five shillings. Peter contritely ac- 
knowledged that " hee had gott over much strong 
drink," whereupon the court remitted the five shil- 
lings fine and mulcted him fifty pence " for his 
appearing before ye Cort drunk." 

In the records of the colony between 1664 and 
1703 are preserved the names of a number of inn- 
holders. Peter Jegou kept a tavern on Burling- 
ton Island before the settlement of the town, while 
somewhat later one of the most famous buildings 



2Z^ J2':?«l<^<-. ^^*--.S^n Burlington, in fact in West Jersey, was Richard 
^■'fy:^ ___j znf^Basnett's brew house, title to which was vested in 










X?. 3 



NNKEEPER's bill «iK 1795. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 299 

his widow and executrix, Elizabeth, by act of the 
Assembly, in May, 1697. In Salem among the 
early innkeepers were Benjamin Acton, Hyppolite 
Lefever, and Michael Hackett; in Woodbridge, 
Richard Powell: and in Perth Amboy, Samuel 
Gibson. 

The change of government occasioned by the 
" surrender " on the part of the proprietors led 
to new legislation upon the regulation of traffic 
in liquors. In December, 1704, an act was passed 
having for its object the suppression of immo- 
rality. One of the provisions of the statute im- 
posed a fine of six shillings upon those convicted 
of drunkenness or breaking the Lord's Day. Con- 
finement in the stocks for two hours was provided 
if the offender could not pay the fine. Innkeepers 
were prohibited from allowing tippling or drink- 
ing in their houses " on the Lord's Day, especially 
during time of Divine Worship," to which was 
added the extremely liberal qualification " ex- 
cepting for necessary refreshment." 

There was subsequent legislation of a similar 
character, but throughout the later colonial pe- 
riod the most noteworthy act dealing with the 
regulating of ordinaries, inns, and taverns was 
that passed March 15, 1738-39. Under this statute 
it was provided that all licenses should be granted 
only in justices' sessions, held where the tavern 
was designed to be kept. The licensees were to 



300 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

come well recommended by letters signed by their 
neighbors, the prospective public householder en- 
tering into recognizance to keep an orderly house 
under penalty of £20. The license remained in 
force for one year. 

Under-sheriffs and goalkeepers were prohibited 
from becoming innkeepers, or from selling liquors, 
simple or mixed, to prisoners under their care. 
The act further provided that clerks of the courts, 
where licenses were granted, should give a list of 
licensees to the county constables, who were di- 
rected to search, four times a year, for evidence 
concerning " enormities, irregularities, and evil 
practices" committed in the taverns. Ten shillings 
was the limit placed upon " trust " accounts, while 
all innkeepers were assessed from forty shillings 
to three pounds for the use of the poor. 

Various modifications were made in this act, 
which, moreover, by the statute of May 10, 1768, 
underwent several important changes. In virtue 
of the latter statute six freeholders of the neigh- 
borhood were required to recommend the licensee, 
certifying to his honesty and temperance. The 
innholder was required to be provided with " two 
good spare Feather Beds more than is necessary 
for the Family's Use," and to have good house 
room, stabling, and pasture. The justices' rates 
for liquors, meat, entertainment, provender, 
stabling, and pasturage were required to be 



ONY AND AS A STATE 301 

posted in the tavern for ten days after spring and 
fall sessions. 

From the two acts herewith cited the legal 
status of the tavern in the later colonial period 
msLY be ascertained. The preamble of the act of 
1738-39 calls attention to the true purposes of inns 
and taverns. These purposes were the accommo- 
dation of strangers and travellers, the dispatch 
of business, and the entertainment and refresh- 
ment of mankind. They were not for the encour- 
agement of gaming, tippling, drunkenness, and 
other vices. The act of 1768 also prohibited 
county justices from granting licenses to shop- 
keepers to keep taverns except in the Coun- 
ty of Cape May. Persons holding vendues, 
" except civil oflticers making vendues at pub- 
lick Houses," were prohibited from giving or sell- 
ing strong liquors at such sales under a penalty 
of £6. 

That the taverns were the scenes of rioting and 
debauchery is not only a matter of tradition but 
of proof. In the office of the clerk of the Supreme 
Court of the State of New Jersey is an unrecorded 
and undated manuscript, probably written about 
1750, containing testimony concerning a wine 
drinking frolic, which terminated a hunting expe- 
dition. The young men who were participants 
were sons of prominent citizens of Hunterdon 
County, and in their orgy it was shown that negro 




AN ANCIKNT TANKARD. 



302 NEW JEESEY AS A COL 

and Indian dances, singing of psalms, and preach- 
ing formed a part of an elaborate ceremony which 
scandalized the community. The witnesses stated 
that the roysterers, after drinking wine, mourned 
the loss of two of their hounds and baptized an- 
other dog which they called their child. 

It was probably this incident or others of a 
similar character that led the grand jury of Hunt- 
erdon County upon the 13th of May, 1754, to make 
a presentment touching disorder in taverns. The 
grand jurors " expressed a particular abhorrence 
and detestation of those public receptacles and 
seminaries of vice, irreligion, and profaness, li- 
censed under color of taverns or houses for the 
reception and entertainment of travellers. The 
number, if your Honors please, are almost as un- 
bounded as unnecessary for the good and honest 
purposes they were at first and ought still to be 
designed. Instead of these, they are most of them 
no other than the private retreat of children, serv- 
ants, and the sink of ye town and country assem- 
bled and congregated together for the more secure 
indulgence of the several fashionable, and without 
your Honors interposition, legal diversions of 
cards, dice, drinking, cursing, swearing and the 
whole train of debaucheries incident to such in- 
famous places." 

The taverns continued to multiply and, it is 
feared, remained " receptacles and seminaries of 



ONY AND AS A STATE 303 



vice, irreligion, and profaneness " until long after 
this remarkable presentment of the grand jury. 
That evils crept in, that dissipation was common, 
might well be expected at a day when the general 
tone of the community was much less refined than 
it is to-day. 



''''"!^^ 



rfTRi-, 




%^^\l^^' 



THE OLD AMKRICAN HOUSK AT HADDONFIELD. 

(In this hot«I the Continpnta) Oongresa held many sessiont, mm) 
here "Di'l "i once held sway.) 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Lawyers and the Supreme Court 



THERE have come down from the ear- 
liest days but few allusions to the 
lawyers who practiced their profes- 
sion in the Jerseys before the union 
of 1702. In all the varied occupa- 
tions disclosed by an examination of public docu- 
ments in the secretary of state's office between 
1664 and 1703 but one man is distinctively men- 
tioned as an attorney-at-law : James Emott, of 
Perth Am boy, deputy surveyor of East Jersey. In 
West Jersey here and there a name appears. In 
May, 1696, the Legislature selected as King's at- 
torney (prosecutor of the pleas) George Deacon 
for Burlington, and Joseph Tomlinson for 
Gloucester, with no appointments for Salem or 
Cape May. In 1697 in this office Benjamin Wheat 
served for Burlington, Tomlinson was continued 
for Gloucester, and Joseph Woodrofe was ap- 
pointed for Salem. In 1699 Thomas Gardner suc- 
ceeded Benjamin Wheat, remaining in office dur- 
ing 1700. The other officials remained as ap- 
pointed, John Crawford, in 1700, acting for Cape 
May County, which for the first time received such 
recognition. In 1701 John Wood became King's 
attorney for Gloucester, after which period the 
o-overnment became vested in the crown. 

These men were respectable citizens of their 
counties, and so far as is known were not ad- 
mitted to the bar in the sense in which the term is 



308 



NEW JEKSEY AS A COL 



now used. The organization of both the East and 
West Jersey courts was simplicity itself, so far as 
the intricacies of practice were concerned. There 
was little or no difficult litigation, and the lawyer 
was held in so little estimation that Gabriel 
Thomas, in his " Historical and Geographical Ac- 
count of the Province and Country of Pensilvania 
and of West-New-Jersey in America," written at 
the close of the seventeenth century, thus assails 
the professional class : 

Of Lawyers and Physicians I shall say nothing, because this 
Coiintrey is very Peaceable and Healthy : long may it so continue and 
never have occasion for the Tongue of the one, nor the Pen of the 
other, both equally destructive to Mens Estates and Lives ; besides 
forsooth, they, Hangman like, have a License to Murder and make 
Mischief. 

There was, however, in West Jersey at this 
period a man of excellent parts, a certain James 
Nevill, clerk of Salem court, who in his manu- 
script book of surveys, under date of 1687, leaves 
for posterity his impressions concerning trials by 
jury. Though written in the stilted language of 
the time, his comments show a clear and ready 
appreciation of the value of an ancient English 
institution. Of jury trials Nevill says : 

The fairest flower that now grows in ye garden of English men's 
liberties is a fair tryall by peers or twelve men of his neighborhood, 
which so much artifice is used by some of this age to pluck up by 
the roots. Justice ought to be measured by the straight meta-wand 
ofthe fundamental laws of England, and not by the crooked lines of 




OLD MONMOUTH COURT HOUSE. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 309 

discretion. . . . It is my opinion that a jury of twelve good 
and honest men of the neighborhood are as good judges of the 
equitable sense of the law and the intent and meaning of the law- 
makers as they are of the letter of the law. 

There is a touch of Blackstone in this critique, 
a flavor of sturdy independence in a desire to sub- 
mit to one's peers the question at issue and a will- 
in«»' determination to abide by the decision. 
Scarcely had Thomas's " Account " been given to 
the world ere there arrived in New Jersey Roger 
Mompesson, first colonial chief justice, who in 
spite of his political complications with the infa- 
mous Lord Cornbury merited Logan's praise that 
" Mompesson is ingenious, able, and honest." 

Whatever may have been the uncertain status 
of lawyers, it is true that the Legislature took 
cognizance of the actual or future presence of 
members of the profession. 

As early as October, 1676, the question of ad- 
mission to the bar was made the subject of legis- 
lation by the East Jersey Assembly. The first 
restriction excluded justices of the peace, who 
were prohibited from appearing as attorneys or 
advocates. They were further estopped from 
drawing declarations except for the King, the 
Lord Proprietor, their own cases, or in suits 
previously instituted. In 1677 these exceptions 
were enlarged by permitting the justices to ap- 
pear as attorneys in '' foreign negotiations." 



310 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

An act of 1694 extended the provisions of the 
statute of 1677, embracing sheriffs, sub-sheriffs, 
courc clerks, commissioners, and messengers of 
the courts of small causes, and heavy penalties 
were provided for violations of the act. The 
whole matter of admission to the bar, so far as 
East Jersey was concerned, was reached finally in 
the eleventh instruction to the erratic Governor 
Jeremiah Basse, who, under date of April 14, 1698, 
was directed to consent to the passage of an act 
prohibiting any attorney from practicing unless 
admitted by His Excellency's license. 

In West Jersey lawyers were mentioned in the 
twenty-second chapter of the Concessions and 
Agreements of March 3, 1676. It is therein pro- 
vided that no person or persons should be com- 
pelled to fee any attorney or counsellor to plead 
his or their cause. All persons should have free 
liberty to plead their own causes if they so de- 
sire. This provision from the fundamental 
charter of the province was confirmed later by an 
act of Assembly approved January 15, 1681. The 
Fundamental Constitution of East Jersey, in 1683, 
contained a similar clause. 

It will be noticed that these provisions are lim- 
ited in scope and apply only to a litigant who de- 
sired to appear in court per se, but that in all other 
cases the retaining of counsel was recognized as a 
part of the legal system of the two colonies. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 311 

The union of 1702 brought system out of judi- 
cial chaos. The bar of New Jersey became estab- 
lished upon a sure foundation, reinforced by able 
men from Pennsylvania and New York. Attor- 
neys were first admitted upon motion, then a plan 
of examinations in open court before the justices 
of the Supreme Court in banc was formulated, ap- 
plicants were recommended to the governor for 
license, and finally, a half century before the Revo- 
lution, these methods of admission were so firmly 
fixed that subsequent changes have been few and 
infrequent. 

Often practicing at the early colonial courts 
were men of unsavory reputations. Like all new 
settled communities, the Jerseys were in a con- 
dition of unrest. Then no person of local influence 
had been born upon this side of the Atlantic. Re- 
ligious and economic considerations had moved 
men to leave their homes over sea, and in the tide 
of immigration the foam and froth came to the 
surface. Men of bubble reputation danced upon 
the wave, sought and often secured place and pre- 
ferment. Quit-rent contests, suits growing out of 
proprietary grants, litigation arising by reason of 
more extended domestic and foreign trade were 
some of the reasons that made the Jerseys attract- 
ive to those who hoped to gain prominence by ex- 
treme partisanship. 

Men of this calibre appeared, at times, before 



312 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

the East and West Jersey courts, whose jurisdic- 
tions and powers were loosely defined. Such 
recognition, when received, was used as a basis 
for personal advancement. Without education or 
position necessary to admit them to the English 
or Scottish bar, America offered a fertile field for 
all such adventurers. Nor can it be denied that 
such self-styled lawyers were the direct cause of 
the legislation already mentioned. 

Following this formative period there appeared 
worthy men in the community, men of more than 
ordinary parts, who, by reason of merit, rose to 
distinction. Some indeed occupied places upon 
the bench, although they had never read law nor 
been admitted to the bar. An examination of the 
" Rules of the Supreme Court " covering the colo- 
nial period discloses the remarkable fact that 
from 1704 to 1776 only two chief justices of New 
Jersey, of eight persons who held that office, were 
licensed attorneys by the courts of the province. 
A notable illustration of the lay element in the 
chief justiceship is to be found in the person of 
William Trent, a merchant, who moved from 
Philadelphia to the highland south of the Assan- 
pink Creek and gave his name shortly before his 
death, in 1724, to the city of Trenton. 

The associate justiceships during that period 
were occupied by twenty-two individuals, of 
whom only three had been admitted to the bar of 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



313 



New Jersey. Of the three Charles Kead and Rich- 
ard Saltar were both admitted, each upon the day 
he was elevated to the bench. Richard Stockton, 
of all the associate justices between 1704 and 1776, 
appears to have been the only enrolled New Jer- 
sey practitioner of law. The lay element also ap- 
peared during and after the Revolution, prom- 
inent among the non-professional associate jus- 
tices being Samuel Tucker, elected in 1776, Isaac 
Smith in 1777, John Cleves Symmes in 1777, John 
Chetwood in 1778, and William Rossell in 1804. 

During the colonial period, of the attorney-gen- 
erals holding office in New Jersey several were 
laymen. It was not until 1723 that James Alex- 
ander, the first New Jersey lawyer, was appointed, 
he being admitted to practice upon the day he 
received his commission as attorney-general, the 
same being true of his successor, Lawrence Smith. 
Joseph Warrell and Cortlandt Skinner, who com- 
plete the list, were both members of the New Jer- 
sey bar. 

During the eighteenth century much of the his- 
tory of New Jersey is interwoven in the records 
of her Supreme Court, which had its actual begin- 
nings in the Ordinance of Lord Cornbury. 
partial failure of the courts of the proprietar 
governments to administer justice, the uncer 
tainty of correct practice, the undefined jurisdic- 



Jaraes Alexander, 6. In Scotland ; fled to America with 
William Smith, the jurist and historian ; was surveyor- 
general of New Jersey and New York; one of the founders 
of the American PhUosopWcal Society; d. in New York, 
April 2, 1756 ; father of Lord Stirling. 




\ 



\^\^^ ^ \ ' 



JAMES ALEXANDER. 



314 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

tion of the earlier tribunals, led to popular dis- 
content and contempt. 

To alter such a situation, to show the colonist 
that the sceptre was held in firm hands, the Su- 
preme Court of the Province of New Jersey was 
established in 1704, with far reaching power over 
the lives and liberties of those within its jurisdic- 
tion. Modeled upon the Courts of Queen's Bench, 
Common Pleas, or Exchequer, its practice con- 
formed to existing English standards, and thereby 
secured the right of trial by jury, except in con- 
fession or in non-appearance. It was provided 
that the court should sit with two sessions yearly, 
alternately at Burlington and Perth Amboy, with 
circuits, held once a year in each county, by one 
of the justices of the main court, assisted by two 
or more justices of the peace in the county where 
the circuit was held. Inferior courts of common 
pleas and general sessions of the peace were or- 
ganized in each county. Nor was the matter of 
appeal from the finding of the Supreme Court neg- 
lected, for under the Queen's instructions to Lord 
Cornbury any judgment for over £100 could be 
carried to the governor and his council, who sat 
as a court of final resort. Appeals lay from the 
governor and his council, in judgments of over 
£200, to the Queen and her Privy Council. 

The colonial Supreme Court of New Jersey was 
the embodiment of an aristocratic sentiment. Dig- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 315 

nified and stately, no haste characterized its pro- 
ceedings, its grand jurors were selected from the 
most worthy citizens, its constables stood in prop- 
er awe, its justices sat in state, and its attorneys 
paid it respect. There was no lack of impressive- 
ness in the sessions of this tribunal. In the old 
court houses of the former provincial capitals, 
behind the oak bench, sat the chief justice and his 
associates, bewigged and stern. Below them 
stood the clerk, holding in his hand the vellum- 
bound minutes stamped in gold with the royal 
arms. Constables, carrying their staves of office, 
passed among the audience or bowed to the law- 
yers, who, tradition says, wore gowns while in 
the judicial presence. 

The hour is eight in the morning in Burlington 
as the crier, upon the 6th day of November, 1704, 
in deep bass makes this first proclamation : 

Her majesty's judges and justices of her Supream Court holden 
for this her pro\ance of New Jersey doe charge and command all 
manner of persons to keep sylence and heare her majestys com'cons 
openly read on paine of imprisonment. All manner of persons that 
will sue or complaine or have any thing here to doe at this Supream 
Court holden here this day before her majesty's judges and justices 
for this Province of New Jersey draw neare and give your attend- 
ance and you shall be heard. 

God save the Queene. 

Occasionally, however, the sessions of the court 
were interrupted by matters beyond the regula- 
tion of the tribunal. Thus in the latter part of 



316 NEW JEKSEY AS A COL 

1731 the smallpox raged in Burlington. Upon 
the minutes of the court is spread at large an 
entry to the effect that, hoping to prevent a 
spread of the epidemic, and " for divers other 
Considerations tending to the Good and publick 
weal," all pleas, writs, bills, processes, and pre- 
cepts returnable in November term be adjourned 
to the following February term. Again, upon the 
15th of March, 1747-48, the Supreme Court sat in 
the house of James Willson, on the south side of 
the Raritan River, for the reason that the chief 
justice could not cross to Perth Amboy, "the Wind 
being so boisterous." Still later the court was 
moved to places of security owing to the exigen- 
cies of the Revolutionary War, having no perma- 
nent habitation until it was finally lodged in 
Trenton when that city was made the capital of 
the State. 

In August, 1762, owing to a variety of seals of 
the Supreme Court being in use, a rule was en- 
tered making uniform practice in the matter. As 
the replica of the original seal is still in use the 
rule possesses a particular interest : 

Whereas, Several Seals have been lodged in difFerent Counties 
of this Province, as Seals of this Court, the same being of Different 
Sizes and making Different Impressions, whereby great Confusion 
may arise by the Uncertainty as to the Process of this Court and 
Difficulty will Attend the Detection of Fraud in the Issuing of 
Contempt in the Misapplication thereof; and whereas such Seals 
have been intrusted in the hands of Particular Persons without any 



ONY AND AS A STATE 317 

Regular Appointment for that Purpose, or even an account taken 
how many Seals were given out or in whose hands they were Lodged, 
for Preventing all which for the future, it is ordered that the Seals, 
the Impression whereof is in the margin [being a Port Cullis with 
the following words Round it " The Seal of the Supreme Court"] be 
for the future the Seal of this Court, and that no Seal with any 
other Impression be used as such, and it is further ordered that no 
Person do Presume to Use the Seal of this Court, for the Sealing of 
any Writ, Process or other Instrument, but only such who shall be 
appointed by Instrument under the hand and seal of the Chief 
Justice for the time being. 

Upon the 18th of March, 1762, the Supreme 
Court had established a precedent for such a rule 
in the adoption of an order to the effect " that all 
persons Posses'd of the Seal of the Supreme Court 
of this Province do deliver the same to the Chief 
Justice by the First day of Term," which order 
was obeyed upon the 15th of May by several mem- 
bers of the bar. It was further ordered that all 
who had seals undelivered should show cause why 
attachment should not issue for contempt. 



CHAPTER XIX 

'JE AND Divorce 



THAT holy and solemn estate wherein 
man taketh woman to be his lawful 
wedded wife until death them do 
part — or otherwise — was the sub- 
ject of due concern on the part of 
the colonists of New Jersey. Neither the Calvinist 
nor the Quaker looked upon marriage as a divine 
sacrament, yet both were rigid in contending that 
such an important civil contract should not be 
entered into lightly, nor should neglect be made 
in preserving the record of so momentous an 
event. 

Superficialists have brought the charge against 
some of the settlers of East Jersey that the Scotch 
emigrants regarded leniently those " common 
law " marriages sometimes contracted among 
servants aboard ships destined for Perth Amboy 
and Elizabethtown. An examination of the facts 
relating to the eastern division shows the unfair- 
ness of such a charge. In 1669 a certain marriage 
in East Jersey was declared unlawful by order, 
the parties being well known in the province; 
while during the year 1675, to properly regu- 
late marriage, a legislative act directed each town 
clerk, under penalty, to provide a record book for 
registering all marriages, together with births and 
deaths, a like plan being provided by the " Funda- 
mental Constitutions " of 1683. 
The Legislature of May, 1668, — the first to as- 




322 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

semble in East Jersey, — contained men who were 
earnest in their endeavor to give proper sanction 
to the marital affairs of the colonists. The act 
passed at that session is a direct refutation of any 
laxness in the matter, the statute directing that 
no person or persons, son, daughter, maid, or serv- 
ant, should be married without the consent of 
parents or masters. The intent of the parties to 
marry was directed to be three times published in 
some public meeting or " kirk," or set up in writ- 
ing for fourteen days on some public house. Minis- 
ters, justices of the peace, " or some chief offi- 
cer " were authorized to perform the ceremony, or 
the governor could grant a license to persons " at 
their own disposing," or to minors when their 
parents or masters had given consent. In Novem- 
ber, 1675, this law was reenacted. 

The careful attention paid to the publishing of 
the banns and the necessity for a license did not 
sit lightly upon the minds of the members of the 
Society of Friends, who possessed influence in the 
eastern board of proprietors, and who demanded 
a more liberal marriage act, particularly as to the 
provisions regarding any solemnization in a 
" kirk." To that end the twentieth chapter of the 
" Fundamental Constitutions " of 1683 enlarged 
the act, making the new statute " agreeable to 
men's different perswasions in religion." This 
chapter provided that all marriages not forbidden 



ONY AND AS A STATE 323 

in the law of God should be esteemed lawful, when 
solemnized before credible witnesses, by taking 
one another as husband and wife, and a certificate 
thereof being properly registered. 

Exceptions made in the case of the Society of 
Friends, and the simplicity of their marriages, led 
to irregularities among some not members of that 
faith. The right was claimed by individuals that 
they were not amenable to the law, and that if 
the Quakers had neither banns nor licenses they, 
too, were exempt. To remedy this certain evil an 
act of October, 1693, imposed a penalty of £10 
upon ministers and justices who joined parties 
without publishing the banns or securing the gov- 
ernor's license. 

Nor were the authorities in East Jersey less 
careful in punishment of those who violated mari- 
tal rights and obligations. The Legislature in 
May, 1668, enacted that adultery should be pun- 
ished by divorce, whipping, or banishment. In 
the restrictions precluding a man from becoming 
a member of the "^ Great council " under the 
" Fundamental Constitutions " of 1683 adultery, 
among other crimes, disqualified a candidate for 
such an honor. Divorces were granted in a few 
instances in East Jersey, but the record is incom- 
plete as to statement of operative causes. 

The Societ}^ of Friends in West Jersey appar- 
ently made no provisions relative to the legisla- 



324 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




A COLONIAL CHATELAINE 



tive regulation of marriages. The peculiar cus- 
toms of their faith left little room for law-making 
where a population was religiously homogeneous. 

As a natural conclusion divorces were practi- 
cally unknown in the western province, the courts 
seeking to unite man and wife at variance rather 
than permanently to separate them. 

The Burlington court book supports this state- 
ment in an entry showing that some time before 
1694 Thomas Peachee and Mary, his wife, had 
agreed upon a separation. To effect a reconcilia- 
tion the Quaker justices at Burlington summoned 
them into court, asking them if they were not 
willing to live together. Mary agreed, and so did 
Thomas, he stipulating that Mary " will acknowl- 
edge shee hath scandalized him wrongfully." To 
this the woman consented, adding an expression 
eternally feminine : " But saith shee will not 
owne that she hath told lies of him to her knowl- 
edge." At this point the negotiations naturally 
came to a standstill. " But after some good ad- 
monitions from ye Bench," says the record, " They 
both p'mise they will forgett and never mention 
what unkind speeches or Actions have formerly 
past betweene them or Concerning each other. 
* * * Hee, s*^ Thomas p'mises, shee behaving 
herselfe, with tenderness and love to him, hee will 
remaine as a Loveing and a Careful 1 Husband to 



ONY AND AS A STATE 325 

her and make ye best p'vision for her and ye Child 
that hee can." 

For the crime of adultery, however, even the 
forgiving Quakers were by no means lenient. 
Upon the 14th day of March, 1682, there appeared 
before Justice Cripps at Burlington one John Car- 
ter and a certain Lydia, who claimed that they 
were married at the house of Samuel Groome, of 
Elizabethtown, " before ye people called Quak- 
ers." It appears upon the examination of an- 
other witness that Lydia was the wife of one Tod, 
of that town, and, probably tiring of the company 
of her true and lawful spouse, had eloped with 
Carter. In the meantime Carter, finding that the 
weight of testimony was piling upon him, — 
adopted a policy sanctioned by the greatest an- 
tiquity, confessed his fault, and " wishes that the 
said Lydia was at home with her said husband." 
Such lack of gallantry cost Carter dear, for 
upon the 22d of March Governor Jenings, with 
Justices Stacy and Cripps, ordered that, " by the 
tenth hower in ye morning," the culprits " be 
whip^ on their naked bodies," Carter to receive 
thirty stripes and Lydia thirty-five stripes, that 
Lydia be sent back home and Carter be kept in 
jail one day after the woman left and then be 
" dismist, paying ye ffees." 

After the union of 1702 the instructions to Gov- 
ernor Cornbury, given at the Court of Saint 



326 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

James, November 16, 1702, vested in that person- 
age the granting of marriage licenses as well as 
the collating of benefices and the probating of 
wills. All other ecclesiastical jurisdiction con- 
cerning the state establishment of the Church of 
England in the colony was lodged in the Lord 
Bishop of London. Lord Cornbury was further di- 
rected to take especial care that a table of mar- 
riages, established by the canons of the Church 
of England, be hung up in every orthodox church 
and duly observed. The governor was also en- 
joined to secure the passage of an act for the ob- 
servance of this table — a matter never accom- 
plished, owing to the strenuous opposition of the 
nonconforming members of the Assembly during 
his administration. 

By far the most important statute regulating 
marriages in New Jersey was that passed upon 
the 27th of March, 1719, an act remaining unal- 
tered for over eight decades. This law was aimed 
at the prevention of clandestine marriages, and 
found its reason for existence in the fact that 
" young persons have been * * » enticed, in- 
veigled, led away and clandestinely married " to 
the ruin of the parties and the great grief of their 
parents and relations. 

The act provided that no persons under the age 
of twenty-one should be married without the writ- 
ten consent of parents or guardians, which con- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 327 

sent was to be duly filed and registered in the of- 
fice of the provincial secretary. Heavy penalties 
were imposed upon license-issuing officers depu- 
tized by the governor when licenses were issued 
without such parental consent. A forfeit of £200 
was placed upon ministers and justices who united 
persons in marriage without having first viewed 
the consent. Any person under age applying for 
a license and offering the certificate of consent 
was required to prove the same on oath or affirma- 
tion. A bond was given to the governor in the 
penal sum of £500, conditioned upon a full ob- 
servance of all the requirements of the statute. 
The bond could be prosecuted by parents or guard- 
ians upon their giving security for costs. The 
statute further provided that persons could marry 
by advertisement of intention, in which case a 
license was not required. Upon production to 
the county clerk of a proper certificate signed by 
parents or guardians, and giving bond, the clerk 
was directed to post at three public places in the 
county such intention, setting forth the names and 
abode of the parties desirous of entering the nup- 
tial state. Parents or guardians could enter dis- 
sent during the space of twenty-one days, and a 
penalty of £500 was imposed upon clerks giving 
certificates while cognizant of such dissent. 
The statutes of Great Britain regulated the de- 



328 NEW JEKSEY AS A COLONY 

grees of affinity or consanguinity observable in 
New Jersey. 

Members of religious societies were permitted 
to marry according to the rules and customs of 
their societies, provided the consent of parents or 
guardians was first obtained. 

The effect of this legislation was extremely 
salutary, as the long period of its unchanged oper- 
ation shows. While the law-making body could 
not prevent all clandestine marriages, the heavy 
penalties of the statute restrained men from carry- 
ing away young girls from both East and West 
Jersey, a practice which, owing to the nearness of 
settlements to the Hudson and Delaware Rivers, 
had early become quite common. 



CHAPTER XX 

Religious Life of the Day 



IN MAY, 1738, there arrived in America, 
from England, a young man, scarcely 
twenty-four years of age, who was des- 
tined to play a most conspicuous part in 
the religious history of the colonies, par- 
ticularly in New Jersey. A religious enthusiast, 
an associate of John and Charles Wesley, the 
founders of Methodism, this remarkable evangel- 
ist has left an imperishable name — George White- 
field — upon the annals of Christianity. 

Whitefleld's first work was in the establishment, 
in Georgia, of an orphan house, " Bethesda," un- 
der the" direction of Oglethorpe and the Wesleys, 
who were then working out the philanthropic 
ideals upon which the colony of Georgia was 
founded. Returning to England, he secured funds 
for his institution, and in a short time appeared 
again in America. Fired with his purpose to 
preach the gospel, he rushed like a whirlwind 
through the colonies, not only once but many 
times. In November, 1739, he appeared in Phila- 
delphia, where, from the court house gallery, he 
preached to six thousand people, " who stood in 
awful Silence to hear him." In a few days he ap- 
peared in Burlington and New Brunswick on his 
way to New York, where a concourse of three 
thousand people assembled such as was never be- 
fore known. Returning to Philadelphia, he again 
addressed the people at Elizabethown, New 



332 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

Brunswick, and Maidenhead, and thence to 
Georgia, where in March, 1740, he laid the corner- 
stone of " Bethesda." 

George Whitefield at once returned to New Jer- 
sey. During April he collected seven thousand 
people in New Brunswick, where there were 
" great Meetings in the Congregations." Of this 
meeting Whitefield says in his journal : " God's 
power was so much amongst us in the Afternoon 
Sermon that had I proceeded the Cries and Groans 
of the Congregation would have drowned my 
voice. One Woman was struck down." During 
the preceding week Whitefield had preached at 
Greenwich, Gloucester, and Amwell in West Jer- 
sey, and during the same week he addressed vast 
audiences at Woodbridge and Elizabethtown. 

Associated with George Whitefield was the 
Eev. Gilbert Tennent, eldest son of the Rev. Will- 
iam Tennent, founder of the famous " Log Col- 
lege." Attracted by the boldness of Whitefield's 
style and greatly impressed by the intensity of his 
religious life, Tennent accompanied Whitefield to 
Boston. Following their passage through the 
colonies swept a wave of intense religious excite- 
ment. At the same time Gilbert Tennent had 
preached a sermon, " The Danger of the Uncov- 
eted Ministry," which was so abusive that the 
Presbyterian Church divided, and the old and new 
side parties came into existence. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



333 



Around Whitefield, Teuneut, and tlieir asso- 
ciates the thunders of religious controversy rolled. 
Hated and revered, defied and worshiped, these 
remarkable men gave to the church in the colo- 
nies a new impulse. Whitefield himself, in the 
height of his enthusiasm, disagreed with Wesley 
on doctrinal points and placed himself without 
the pale of the discipline of any denomination. 
Tennent, however, remained with the Presbyte- 
rian Church. He soon established a congregation 
at New Brunswick, from which many disciples 
went abroad throughout the country. 

The contributors to the Boston, Philadelphia, 
and New York newspapers of the period were either 
intensely bitter or filled with admiration concern- 
ing the propagandists. In language far from re- 
spectful or even decent the vials of wrath were 
poured upon the heads of these two men, upon 
their converts, and particularly upon "Bethesda." 
In reply were printed letters filled with un- 
stinted praise, of earnest hope for a further re- 
vival in religious affairs, and of the possible glory 
of a regenerated popular life. Doctrinal issues, 
personal malice, rumor, and abuse were thrown 
into the controversy. 

The colonies never had such an experience, nor 
were they destined to have another. In the wake 
of the revivals went up the shouts of the con- 
verted, the cries of those who had not availed 







334 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

themselves of present opportunities. Men 
dreamed and saw visions, after they had fallen 
upon the ground, so povrerfully had they been 
moved by the preaching of the associates. Thus 
for nearly if not quite a decade the spirit of the 
new movement seized the people. Whitefleld con- 
tinued his ministry, crossed and recrossed the At- 
lantic, spoke in many places and at many times in 
New Jersey, ultimately dying in 1769. 

In the colony and State of New Jersey the in- 
fluence of the preaching of Whitefleld long af- 
fected the current of religious thought. It 
breathed new life into Presbyterianism and pre- 
pared the way for the establishment of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church. To education it gave an 
impulse and led to the furtherance of a plan for a 
trained ministry. The subtle influences which ex- 
ist between freedom of religious and political 
thought found expression, and showed men that 
the meeting house must be vitalized as well as the 
State. Stripped of some of its doctrinal absurdi- 
ties and all of its unfortunate quarrels, the White- 
field movement remains the most striking in the 
religious history of colonial times. 

Of the eminent members of the Society of 
Friends, whose public ministrations formed so im- 
portant a part of the religious life of the colony, 
none enjoyed a more distinguished position than 
did John Woolman. Of him memorials are few, 




THE FIRST METHODIST CHUKCH 



ONY AND AS A STATE 335 

chief among them being in a quiet corner of Bish- 
op's Hill burying ground, in the ancient city of 
York, Old England, where stands a plain sand- 
stone slab, about two feet in height. Carved 
thereon in letters darkened by age are these sim- 
ple words : 

Near this Place 

John Woolman 

of Mount Holly 

New Jersey, North America 

Died 7th of Tenth Month 1772 

Aged 62 Years. 

Born of emigrant Quaker parentage, who had 
settled in the Rancocas Valley, John Woolman in- 
herited intense religious impulses, which he early 
and assiduously cultivated. Drawn toward the 
teachings of the meeting as a child and young 
man, he was much impressed by the faith of his 
fathers. It was a day of dogmatic assertion, of 
narrowness in belief, yet such was the breadth 
and nobility of his mind that, although he was a 
strict member of the Society of Friends, he was 
free from the self-righteousness so characteristic 
of the age. In his journal he shows himself singu- 
larly clear from the assumptions of creed when 
he says : " I found no narrowness respecting sects 
and opinions; but believed that sincere upright- 
hearted people, in every society who truly love 
God, were accepted by Him." 



336 NEW JEKSEY AS A COL 

The life of this remarkable man, as told by him- 
self, — a life so far reaching in its influences, — 
shows that as a boy he " wrought on his father's 
plantation " until 1741, when he became a book- 
keeper and clerk in a store in Mount Holly. Here, 
in accordance with the customs of the Society of 
Friends, John Woolman learned the tailoring 
trade, opening a school for poor, neglected chil- 
dren in conformity to his often expressed senti- 
ment : " It is a lovely sight to behold innocent 
children," and that " to labor for their help 
against that which would mar the beauty of their 
minds is a debt we owe them." 

From the expression of such sentiments, with 
the widely accepted view in the Society that the 
preacher is himself a teacher, John Woolman, 
at the age of twenty-three, entered on his public 
ministry. He first visited East Jersey. In 1746, 
in accordance with the customs of travelling 
Friends, he went among the meetings of Virginia, 
and in 1763 established himself as a preacher of 
power to Indians of the frontier settlements of 
Pennsylvania. In the meantime John Woolman 
continued his work in West Jersey and in Phila- 
delphia, while in 1772 he embarked for England, 
dying in York, from that dread disease, the small- 
_ pox. Thus ended the brief career of a man whose 
. jf -i^ts^n-e throughout the colonies was a household 




A COUNTRY CHURCH. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 337 

So far as the routine of his life was concerned 
it was simplicity itself. Born on a plantation, he 
became a merchant and school teacher in a pro- 
vincial village, entered the ministry, traveled 
through the colonies, and died in England. There 
is scarcely a dramatic incident, scarcely an event 
of striking importance. But John Woolman's 
power consisted not only in preaching the doc- 
trines of the Society in their original purity, but in 
exemplifying in his own life that which he taught 
and believed. This may be illustrated in a single 
instance. 

In a community where the art of writing was 
less practiced than it is to-day John Woolman 
drew the wills of his associates. Profit came to 
such scriveners, yet he steadfastly refused to write 
any will in which the right of holding human be- 
ings as personal property was acknowledged. And 
this was at a time when slave owning, although 
discountenanced by the meetings of the Society, 
was common among the most influential members 
of the sect. 

To understand properly the type of mind of 
John Woolman one must revert to his writings. 
John Woolman made no novel declaration of 
faith, yet so clear, so logical, were his statements, 
crystallizing the best of Quakerism, that his jour- 
nal, breathing the spirit of the nobility of his char- 
acter, reads like a new dispensation. Woolman 



338 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

believed that true religion consists of an in- 
ward life, wherein the heart loves and reverences 
God the Creator, and learns to exercise true jus- 
tice and goodness, not only toward all men, but 
also toward the brute creatures; that as the mind 
is moved by an inward principle to love God as an 
invisible, incomprehensible Being, by the same 
principle it is moved to love Him in all His mani- 
festations in the visible world; that as by His 
breath the flame of life is kindled in all animate 
sensible creatures, to say we love God as unseen, 
and, at the same time, exercise cruelty toward the 
least creature moving by His life, or by life de- 
rived from Him, is a contradiction in itself. 

Such an enunciation, free as it was from theolog- 
ical sophistries, John Woolman sought to apply 
to certain evils then existent. His was an ob- 
jective as well as a subjective life, and, recogniz- 
ing needed reforms, he strove to apply these eth- 
ical principles to the betterment of social condi- 
tions. Of all these reforms the wrongs inflicted 
upon slaves — even slavery itself — were closest to 
his heart. In this regard John Woolman may in- 
deed be said to be the apostle of the abolition- 
ist movement in America. Taking for his text 
that, in accordance with the Divine Plan, all 
abuse and oppression of human and brute cre- 
ation must cease, he fearlessly preached this doc- 
trine, not only in New Jersey, where slave own- 




ONY AND AS A STATE 339 

ing was recognized, but in Virginia, where the in- 
stitution was the very basis of the social and eco- 
nomic life of the commonwealth. In New Jersey, 
while slave owning was not particularly profit- 
able, the keeping of human beings in bondage was ^ 
recognized by the law and practiced by members " "*'^ 4^^5?pp^ 
of the Society in common with adherents of other 
religious denominations. To relieve these men in 
bondage, to give them personal freedom, was thi 
aim of this man, who paved the way for Benezet^ 
Garrison, and Brown, and furnished to the aboll^ 
tionists and free soilers of later days argumenta^i 
the truth or falsity of which were tried in the fur- the friends meeting house 

, ... AT CROSSWICKS. 

nace of civil war. 

Another subject upon which John Woolman 
often gave testimony was the matter of liquor 
drinking among those of wealth, who drank, as 
he said, in accordance with social customs, and 
among the poor, who were driven thereto by im- 
moderate labor. Although not a prohibitionist, 
for he says there is " too liberal use of spirituous 
liquors * * * the greater part of which we 
should have no use of," he urged the greatest 
moderation; portraying the disasters of those who 
become enslaved to ardent spirits. 

In his own life John Woolman was the model 
of that self-denial which he so earnestly besought 
others to adopt. He wore plain clothing, the 
woolen white, the linen flax, avoided the use of 



340 NEW JERSEY AS A OOL 

plate and costly furniture, believing luxury 
and superfluity to be the ground of much human 
suffering and of untold evils. He argued that 
such things tended to effeminate the mind, and 
that thereby the strength of the body was weak- 
ened. 

John Woolman's mercantile career gave him an 
opportunity to examine with care the current 
credit system in store keeping, a practice which 
gave him much concern. To aid the poor, who 
were the most greatly affected by the extension 
of credit, John Woolman sold his goods at small 
profit and urged his buyers to purchase only what 
they needed and to " keep within their means." 

This striking instance of his devotion to prin- 
ciple appertains to yet another subject close to his 
mind during his ministry. The French and In- 
dian War brought a new problem to John Wool- 
man. He believed, with other members of the So- 
ciety, that war was inconsistent with the purity 
of the Christian religion. He, in 1758, was di- 
rected to quarter two soldiers, which in obedience 
to civil authority he did. But when pay for the 
soldiers' board was offered he refused the stipend 
on the ground of passive submission to the law of 
the land. 

Turning to the man himself, tradition says that 
he was an orator of unusual power, yet such was 
his modestv and desire to t^ch pure wisdom with- 




ONY AND AS A STATE 341 

out recourse to human arts that he stifled his gift. 
He says upon one occasion that he saw more than 
was required of him, which " taught him to feel 
that rise which prepares the creature to stand like 
a trumpet, through which the Lord speaks to His 
flock." But whatever may have been his manner 
of speech the testimony of the Burlington Month- 
ly Meeting says " his ministry was sound, very 
deep, and penetrating," both in exhortation and 
admonition. 

No portrait of John Woolman is extant, so far 
as known, and it is likely none was ever painted, 
as portraiture was not only almost unknown in 
the colonies, but was held in disfavor among the 
members of the Society in that day. Tradition 
has it that he was of an attractive personality and 
of excellent presence. 

To the world John Woolman is best known 
through his journal, first printed in Philadelphia 
in 1775, many times reprinted in Dublin, Lon- 
don, and elsewhere abroad, the edition of 1871 
containing an appreciative biography by the poet 
Whittier. Not only as a theologian but as a styl- 
ist John Woolman deserves the highest rank 
among American writers. In " Elia " Charles 
Lamb — that lovable soul who was surely at- 
tracted by such a man as John Woolman — says : 
" Get the writings of John Woolman by heart and 
love the early Quakers." Channing's enthusiasm 




342 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

concerning the journal is even more pronounced 
when he calls it " the purest and sweetest of all 
autobiographies." To Henry Crabb Robinson 
Woolman was a " Christian all love " with " a 
style of the most exquisite purity and grace." It 
is said at one time the journal was used as a text- 
book at Princeton College. 

Nor was the journal the only product of this 
master mind. The width of John Woolman's in- 
terests may be judged from the titles of but three 
of his other published works. Thus in Philadel- 
phia there came from the press in two parts (1753- 
1762) " Some Considerations on the Keeping of 
Negroes," which in 1768 was followed by " Con- 
siderations on Pure Wisdom and Human Policy, 
on Labor, on Schools, and on the Right Use of the 
Lord's Outward Gift." Two years later there ap- 
peared " Considerations on the True Harmony of 
Mankind; and how it is to be maintained." This 
remarkable collection of " Considerations " was 
succeeded by " An Epistle to the Quarterly and 
Monthly Meetings of Friends," published in 1772. 
Appearing, as it did, during the intensity of the 
political discussions of the time, neither it nor a 
posthumous work, " Serious Considerations on 
various Subjects of Importance, with Some of His 
Dying Expressions," printed at London in 1773, 
attracted as much attention as some of his earlier 
works. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 343 

The reputation enjoyed by John Woolman 
among the members of his Society has been endur- 
ing. In becoming the exemplar of the doctrines 
of thi' (Quakers, in " living the life," he strove for 
the betterment of his fellowmen, not only by his 
example, but by precept. 

By a somewhat strange coincidence the minis- 
terial labors of Whitefield and Woolman, both 
working toward a common end by such radically 
different methods, came to a close about 1770. 

An inquiry as to the relative strength of the 
various religious denominations in New Jersey 
during this period may be profitably made. From 
Samuel Smith's " History of the Colony of Nova 
Cfesarea or New Jersey," published in 1765, a 
tabulation has been prepared which shows the 
distribution of denominations throughout the 
colony. 

The Presbyterians in East Jersey, including 
Hunterdon and Morris Counties, had forty-one 
churches, and fourteen in West Jersey, though 
their influence in the western division was largely 
confined to limited areas in Gloucester, Salem, 
Cumberland, and Cape May Counties. 

The Society of Friends had in West Jera 
thirty meeting houses, one in Sussex, thj?^ in 
Monmouth, and four in Middlesex. There were 
meeting houses in Essex County, in Rahway, and g 




344 



NEW JEKSEY AS A COL 



in Plainfield, but in Somerset and Bergen Coun- 
ties they had no houses for worship. 

The Episcopalians had twelve churches in East 
Jersey and nine in West Jersey, being unrepre- 
sented in the Counties of Somerset, Bergen, Cape 
May, Morris, and Sussex. 

Of the other faiths the Baptists had nineteen 
meeting houses, evenly distributed throughout 
the province, possessing strength in Monmouth 
County, but having no congregation in Morris or 
Bergen. The Seventh Day Baptists had two 
churches in Middlesex and Cumberland, while the 
Anabaptists sustained a congregation in Morris 
County, as did the Separatists and Rogerines. 

The Low Dutch Church had seven meeting 
houses in Bergen, five in Sussex, five in Somerset, 
CHURCH AT BKRGEN IN 1680. tw^o lu Esscx, oue lu Huuterdou, and one in Mid- 
dlesex; while the Dutch and German Lutherans 
had six congregations in Somerset, Bergen, Hun- 
terdon, Sussex, and Salem Counties. There was 
also a congregation of German Presbyterians in 
Hunterdon County, while in Gloucester there ex- 
isted a Swedish church and a Moravian mission. 

There were thus in New Jersey about one hun- 
dred and sixty meeting houses, distributed among 
a dozen denominations. Of these about thirty- 
three per cent, were in the possession of the Pres- 
byterians, about twenty per cent, in the hands of 
the Society of Friends, thirteen per cent, were 




ONY AND AS A STATE 345 

owned by the Episcopalians, and about twelve per 
cent, under the control of the Baptists. The re- 
mainder, about twenty-five per cent, of the one 
hundred and sixty houses of worship, were largely 
owned by the Low Dutch and the Dutch Calvinists. 

The Dutch church at Bergen, organized in 1660, 
is the oldest in the State. The Old Tennent 
Church, near Freehold, claims to be the mother 
church of the Presbyterian denomination in 
America. The first Universalist Church in Amer- 
ica was formed in Monmouth (now Ocean) 
County. 

The meeting houses of all the denominations 
were plain, substantial buildings, erected of what- 
ever material was commonly used in the communi- 
ties where they stood. Little or no attention was 
paid to adornment; austerity was truly as much 
an architectural as a religious merit. All had 
benches of relative hardness, all were fireless in 
winter, and all provided sheds for the care of the 
horses of the congregations. Most meeting houses 
were located at points central to farming commu- 
nities, which placed them upon well travelled 
roads. Services were conducted with the greatest 
decorum, although before and after the sermon, 
which was usually doctrinal and was consequent- 
ly the momentous event of the day, the congrega- 
tions assembled to discuss matters of interest to 
themselves and to their neighborhoods. 



346 



NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 



Whatever may have been the differences among 
the faiths as to forms of worship, this custom was 
general among them, even among the Society of 
Friends, where the men and women were sepa- 
rated during the hours of meeting. Nor did music 
play any prominent part in the Sunday services, 
except in the Episcopalian churches. Among 
many of the Calvinists, and particularly among 
the Quakers, music was not permitted. 

Around all the churches were the graveyards, 
where were buried those faithful to their religious 
vows. Throughout the colony plantation grave- 
yards were common, many preferring to be laid 
away near their homes than under the shadow 
of the meeting houses. The graveyards were, how- 
ever, as in all new communities, neglected. 



.^•i-v'X.fr. (. op SIl ML LiJAlJI.l ... ,, . 

.'£^('i-y- S JOHNS L0DGL(wNsliriJfH)-i?>^5;:-,>;*?i 

' •• ^ ^ J.c- B U RNT DOWA' IHES'OI MAK( H J^^^M. 






I ! AM It I INK 1 












CHAPTER XXI 

The Status of Education 



THE origin of schools within the State 
of New Jersey may be traced, with 
a great degree of certainty, to the 
advent of the Hollanders and the 
Swedes. In the development of the 
settlements of these two nationalities a familiar, 
almost necessary, relationship existed between the 
schools and that other agency of civilization, the 
churches. In communities where the struggle for 
existence was bitter there were few, if any, who 
had either time, experience, or inclination to teach 
the young. To the minister, in the discharge of 
his duties, this task naturally fell, not only on ac- 
count of his superior mental advantages, but be- 
cause the current view of education itself was 
that it was religious rather than secular. 

As early as 1633 there was founded in New 
Amsterdam the Collegiate Church School, which 
gave secular instruction to the youth of the town, 
and may have had among its students youths 
from the w^estern shore of the Hudson. In 1647 
Director Stuyvesant wrote to Holland asking that 
there be sent to his colony a " pious, well quali- 
fied, and diligent Schoolmaster," while in 1658 
a Latin school in New York had among its pupils 
young men from the Hudson River settlements 
as far as Albany and from distant Virginia. 

But it was in 1664, in the village of Bergen, that 
the first school of which authentic record exists 



350 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

was established within the limits of New Jersey. 
Of this institution of learning Engelbert Steen- 
huysen, church clerk, was master. From eight 
o'clock in the morning until eleven in the fore- 
noon, and from one o'clock until four o'clock in 
the afternoon, he taught reading, writing, and 
spelling, and even arithmetic when the maturity 
of the child-mind permitted such an intellectual 
pursuit. 

Upon the Delaware the Swedes made brave at- 
tempts toward the proper instruction of the chil- 
dren of the community. In their churches at 
Tinicum, New Castle, Christina, and Wecaco, upon 
the west bank of the Delaware, tradition and 
record show that the minister was also a school- 
master, or had an assistant who performed such 
duties while acting as clerk, reader, and comforter 
of the sick. Such was the custom in Sweden, and, 
as Wickersham points out, this educational policy 
was undoubtedly transferred to the Zuydt Riviere. 

That the ministers of the Swedish church 
visited the scattered settlements on the New Jer- 
sey shore of the Delaware is known, and that secu- 
lar instruction was then given is extremely prob- 
able. But in the hopelessness of Sweden's at- 
tempts to colonize New Jersey these efforts to 
teach were necessarily abandoned, and the 
younger generations were left, in New Jersey, to 
secure instruction as best they could. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



351 



In both New Netherland and New Sweden the 
range of instruction was necessarily limited. Un- 
der direction from the home governments, and un- 
der natural impulse, the ministers sought to pre- 
serve the use of the language and church customs 
of their respective nations. In this the Dutch 
were as singularly successful as the Swedes were 
unsuccessful. Instruction by means of the cate- 
chisms and the Bible was a common method of 
teaching, while the rudiments, a little Latin, and, 
mayhap, Greek, completed the curriculum. Such 
scientific knowledge as the Old World possessed 
did not reach the shores of New Jersey except in 
a diluted form. In such instruction there was 
danger of witchcraft. 

When the Scotch and English Galvinists came 
to East Jersey there came into the colony that 
type of school famous in the early annals of New 
England. While not so highly intensified as in 
the more northern colonies, the East Jersey school 
was distinctively a part of town life, and, as 
among the Swedes and Dutch, was made a part of 
the work of the local church. But in addition to 
this influence government rendered aid. In 1664 
Governor Carteret's charter, granted to Bergen, 
provided for a church and " free school," sup- 
ported by a tract of land exempt from taxes or 
other charges. Woodbridge, in 1669, in her char- 
ter, was empowered to sustainf^sclrooITrqin^t 





352 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

proceeds of certain land " set apart for education," 
wliile in 1676 Newark rejoiced in a well-qualified 
schoolmaster. 

In 1693 the East Jersey Legislature provided 
general legislation upon this subject in a statute 
which stated, in its preamble, that " the cultiva- 
tion of learning and good manners tends greatly 
to the good and benefit of mankind." A town 
election was permitted whereby three men were 
to make a rate and establish a schoolmaster's 
salary. Under this and a subsequent law schools 
were established, according to collateral evidence, 
although the records of the institutions are lost. 

Instruction in the East Jersey schools was 
largely of a religious nature. The Bible and the 
catechism were used as text-books, and these were 
studied with thoroughness. But little attention 
was paid to the higher branches of learning, ex- 
cept possibly mathematics and a superficial read- 
ing of the classics. 

In West Jersey the Society of Friends di- 
rected especial attention to the subject of 
education. Burlington had scarce more than 
a name before the Assembly, in 1682, passed 
an act whose design was to encourage " learn- 
ing for the better education of youth." It 
provided that a valuable tract of land situated 
in the Delaware, above Burlington, and known as 
Matinicunk Island, " remain to and for the use 



ONY AND AS A STATE 353 

of the town of Burlington * * * for the 
maintaining of a school for the education of 
youth." The revenues, managed by trustees, de- 
rived from a part of this island are still devoted 
to the purpose intended. This is probably the 
oldest trust fund of an educational character now 
existing within the limits of the United States. 

Possibly the clearest exponent of the Quaker 
system of education in that early day was Thomas 
Budd, the author of " Good Order Established in 
Pennsylvania and West-New-Jersey in America." 
His plan of instruction, for the time, was compre- 
hensive and, in part, was adopted. Compulsory 
education, during a period of seven years, at " the 
publick school," was urged. Such schools, he 
said, should be set up in all towns and cities, while 
" persons of known honesty, skill, and understand- 
ing be yearly chosen by the Governor and General 
Assembly to teach and instruct boys and girls." 
The curriculum embraced reading and writing 
" true English and Latin • * * and fair writ- 
ing, arithmetick, and bookkeeping." 

The artist-artisan idea appears in embryo. The 
boys were to be instructed in " some mystery or 
trade, as the making of mathematical instru- 
ments, joynery, turnery, the making of clocks and 
watches, weaving, and shoemaking." The girls 
were to be taught " spinning in flax and wool, the 
knitting of gloves and stockings, sewing and mak- 



354 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



ing of all sorts of needle work, and the making 
of straw work, as hats, baskets, etc." Budd also 
recommended that upon seventh day afternoon 
(Saturday) religious meetings be held for boys 
and girls, but with the sexes separate and apart, 
that the " children will be hindered of running 
into that excess of riot and wickedness that youth 
is incident to, and they will be a comfort to their 
tender parents." 

The period following the establishment of royal 
government, in 1702, was marked by no striking 
advance in the status of educational life. From the 
letters of the missionaries sent by the Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 
the undeniable fact is presented that there were 
many people in New Jersej^ who were ignorant. 
The schools established under the influences of 
the various churches reached out only to the chil- 
dren of members of those creeds. The outward 
stimuli, which would lead to a desire for mental 
SEAL or THE SOCIETY FOR THK Improvemeut, were largely wanting in colonial 

rnOPAGATION OF THK GOSPEL ,.„ ,, ,,. ,., . • - i • ^t t 

life. No public libraries existed in New Jersey 
until practically the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and these were few and feeble. Such books 
as had been brought over sea were lodged in the 
hands of the ministry or the landed proprietors, 
and thus were inaccessible to the mass of the peo- 
ple. Mails were infrequent, the New York and 
Philadelphia newspapers were of narrow circula- 




IN KOREIGN PARTS. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 355 

tion, and were expensive. Even the Bible was not 
to be found in every house. Children were early 
taught household duties or made to work at trades 
or upon the farm. With night came physical tire 
and lack of artificial illumination. But above and 
beyond all there was no uniform, permanent sys- 
tem of public instruction stimulated by public aid. 
Such education as was obtained was usually by 
observation, by listening to conversations in the 
public rooms of inns, in attendance upon the trial 
of causes in court, or '' sitting under " the local 
minister. 

Early in the century there grew up the practice 
of establishing private schools. These were usual- 
ly held in the house of some prominent citizen, 
or, it may be, in some crude building erected for 
the purpose. Here assembled the children of the 
neighborhood, who received instruction from an 
itinerant schoolmaster, and who, in rare cases, 
became a part of the family of his patron, as was 
customary in the tidewater district of Virginia. 
Sometimes he " boarded " from house to house. 
Occasionally the teacher was a college bred man 
from Harvard, Yale, or later, Princeton; some- 
times he was a clever young fellow, seeking a liv- 
ing, and not infrequently he was a Scotch or Irish 
redemptioner, who, qualified to teach, sold his 
" time " to some public spirited man that the 



356 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

cause of " learning and polite manners " might 
thereby be advanced. 

Shifting through the tangled threads of the 
fabric of colonial life there ever appears the class 
of men who are to be found in every community. 
These are the adventurers, glib of tongue, easy 
mannered, and impecunious. That men of this 
type taught school in the province is unquestion- 
ably true. Outwardly they were genteel, but what 
with drinking, gambling, dueling, and runaway 
marriages their course was so corrupt that danger 
lay in their thoroughly corrupting the morals of 
the youth. To correct this evil, what was prob- 
ably the first attempt in New Jersey to formu- 
late a policy of instruction by restrictive action on 
the part of the general government was adopted. 
In 1758 Governor Bernard was instructed by 
the home authorities to prohibit any Englishman 
from teaching school in the province of New 
Jersey, except the applicant show license from the 
Bishop of London. All other persons were re- 
quired to secure the governor's license — a regula- 
tion more honored in the breach than in the ob- 
servance. Yet the life of the schoolmaster had its 
hardships, as is shown by an unpublished record 
of the Supreme Court to the effect that upon the 
22d of November, 1773, the justices and freehold- 
ers of " Acquackanock," " in the County of Essex," 
presented a petition to " His Excellency, William 



ONY AND AS A STATE 357 

Franklin, Esqr, Captain General and Governor in 
Chief in and over the Province of New Jersey and 
Territories thereon Depending in America, Chan- 
cellor and Vice-Admiral of the Same," etc. 

This formal presentation set forth the facts that 
David Campbell had for a considerable time re- 
sided in Acquackanock while engaged in teaching 
school, behaving himself as a sober man and dili- 
gent in his calling. " But the Confinement of 
schoolkeeping," say the petitioners, " proving of 
Late hurtful to his health, and having no Trade 
to procure himself a living and he being Desirous 
and we the Subscribers Considering him A person 
properly qualified for following the Business of A 
Hawker Pedlar or Petty Chapman, most Humbly 
Recommend him Beseeching your Excellency to 
grant him a License for to follow the above Busi- 
ness." 

The schools of the period were replicas of the 
earlier type. The schoolmaster — rarely one hears 
of a schoolmistress — was monarch of his educa- 
tional kingdom. Tardiness, failures in recitation, 
slight insubordinations were met with a liberal 
application of the rod. Blackboards, maps, refer- 
ence books, and pictures were unknown. Paper 
was costly, ink was made on the farm from vege- 
table products, while the teacher instructed the 
children in the making of quill pens. In winter 
the rooms were cold and cheerless, in summer hot 



358 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




i(<'^mn,yCc/yi^^^ic 



/trmy 



and usually ill-ventilated. Much of the instruc- 
tion was given by questions and answers, and 
woe betide the boy who did not learn verbatim 
his Bible verses, although the master might be 
redolent with gin when he heard the recitation. 

While probably sufficient for ordinary needs, 
the education of the young men was largely of an 
intensely practical character. Stress was laid 
upon what would now be termed a " business 
course," and as few of the sons of Jerseymen 
studied abroad, or prepared in England for the 
bar or the ministry, there was but little call for 
advanced methods of instruction. 

But the fate of the daughters was even worse. 
It may be said that the instruction of females was 
limited to a bare understanding of the rudiments. 
Much regret is expressed in late years that the 
letters of colonial women, of the middle and upper 
classes, have not been preserved. The reason may 
be found not in the lack of preservation, but be- 
cause such letters did not exist. While women 
were taught to write, few availed themselves, to 
any extent, of their opportunities. Such letters 
as have been preserved are largely of a domestic 
or religious character. Indeed the sentiment was 
abroad that too much education was not beneficial 
for women, that a knowledge of books weaned 
them from the domestic circle, and that their place 
was in the kitchen or carins: for the children. The 



Joiutlukn Dii^kinion, hr»t proniileiit of the College of N»w 
Jeraey 174*47; b. in Uatfleld, M»iui., April 2«, 1688; p»itor 
of tbM Pinit Pru«byt«riMi Chun^h, RliMtMthtOwn, N. J., 
•»«r forty ye»r»; J. Oot. 7. 1747. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



359 



selfishness of this view, and the generally subordi- 
nate place occupied by women, according to the 
custom of the time, retarded any great intellectual 
development. Only among the Society of Friends 
were women given public position — and then only 
as approved ministers. 

Through the darkness of this period one bright 
gleam pierces the gloom. This was the charter- 
ing of the College of New^ Jersey (now Princeton 
University) upon the 22d day of October, 1746. 
Briefly stated, the organization of the college was 
due to the intense religious excitement marking 
the progress of George Whitefield through the 
American colonies, as well as the crystallization of 
years of thought, stimulated largely by the atti- 
tude of the Presbyterian Church. In Bucks Coun- 
ty, Pennsylvania, some years previous to the char- 
tering of the college, the Rev. William Tennent 
had erected a building called partly in derisio 
and wholly in truth " Log College." Thence went 
out to the world some who afterward became lead- 
ers in the secular and religious life of the colo- 
nies. 

Tennent and Whitefield united in furthering 
that remarkable movement which revived, in 1740, 
the spirit of the Calvinist movement in New Jer- 
sey. Already the Presbyterian Church in the 
colony had divided itself into two elements. Three 
questions were at issue. These points of differ- 





^/\.*t /c 



^^ 



■*n EdwardB. 
•■i-59; b. at 



iX t'rmi:*' 
R«T. Aar 



5. ITM; 4. 

n-lair, 



360 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




SAMUEL SAVIES. 



ence, as delineated bj the Eev. John De Witt, of 
Princeton Theological Seminary, were upon the 
value of religious experiences, of preaching de- 
signed immediately to call forth religious con- 
fession, and the learning requisite for admission 
to the ministry. Upon one side stood the distinct- 
ively evangelical element led by Tennent, White- 
field, and the " Log College " men; upon the other 
the conservative element. From doctrinal dis- 
cussions the contest became personal, and in the 
midst of this contention the college was born. 

One of the earliest patrons of the college, if not 
its most conspicuous friend in America and in the 
court of England, was Governor Jonathan Belch- 
er. Among his correspondence has been pre- 
served a letter which gives in a few words a clear 
exposition of the status of the college in its early 
days. Writing to his cousin, William Belcher, 
the following letter was sent to England : 



Sr — This is a fine Climate and a Countrey of great plenty tho' 
but of Little profit to a Governour, The inhabitants are generally 
rustick and without Education. I am therefore attempting the 
building of a College in the province for Instructing the youth in 
the Principles of Religion in good Literature and Manners and I 
have a Reasonable View of bringing it to bear. 

Burlington N. J. I am Sr 

Sept 17, 1747 Your Friend and Very 

humble servant 
J. BELCHER. 

The new found institution was first established 



Hktnuel D»iiM, fourth pr««ldent of tha CoUoge of New 
J«r*ey 1750-4I ; b. nrmr f^nmmit Bridge, Del., Not. 3, 1788; 
preached Id Yirginik, ertkbllihiog the first preiibytory there; 
d. Feb. 4. 1761. 



ONY ^IND AS A STATE 361 

at Elizabethtown, was rechartered in 1748, was 
soon removed to Newark, and in 1757 finally lo- 
cated at Princeton, where its most historic edi- 
fice, " Nassau Hall," named in honor of William 
III of England, prince of that house in Holland, 
was erected. 

Throughout the colonial period the college met 
with success, although the novelty of such an in- 
stitution awakened some speculation as to its 
ultimate destiny. From individuals money was 
collected for its support, and a series of lotteries 
were drawn at various places which brought to 
the college additional funds. In 1754 the General 
Assembly of the Church of Scotland authorized 
a general collection for the institution; in 1755 
Edinburgh's churches contributed toward the edu- 
cation of " Students of Divinity at the College of 
New Jersey in America " ; while during the pre- 
vious year Mr. Tennent, " Deputy for the College," 
had collected £1500 sterling in England, books, 
and mathematical instruments, had visited Ire- 
laud for the same laudable purpose, and had inter- 
ested in the welfare of the college seventy dis- 
senting ministers in London. Although attempts 
were made to blacken the character of Mr. Ten- 
nent and to injure the enterprise the work of the 
college was continued with unabating energy. A 
large proportion of the graduates of ihe-earitest 
classes entered the ministry. Of the six members 




NAB8Ar hall: PRIN 



362 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




Qfo-y^-^ 



of the first class, that of 1748, five became Presby- 
terian ministers, the sixth being Richard Stock- 
ton, a New Jersey signer of the Declaration of In- 
dependence. Then follows, before the Revolution, 
an illustrious list of graduates. To Virginia 
went John Todd, William Graham, and Samuel 
Stanhope Smith; to North Carolina Hugh Mc- 
Aden, Hezekiah James Balch, Joseph Alexander, 
,and David Caldwell; to Western Pennsylvania 
Thaddeus Dod and John McMillan, — to establish 
and revivify the Presbyterian faith upon the fron- 
tier. Dartmouth College, the outgrowth of the 
Indian Mission School in Connecticut, was stimu- 
lated by the exertions of Nathaniel Whitaker; 
Brown University had its first impulses as the 
College of Rhode Island under the direction of 
James Manning; Union College, New York, was 
the outgrowth of the efforts of Theodore Dirck 
Romeyn; while Hamilton College, New York, 
owes its existence to Samuel Kirkland. William 
Shippen founded the first medical school in Amer- 
ica, at Philadelphia, while the second medical 
college in the colonies was erected in New York 
by James Smith and John V. B. Tennent. Hamp- 
den Sidney College, Virginia, had for its first 
president Samuel Stanhope Smith. In North 
Carolina the Queen's Museum, twice deprived of 
its charter, and where sat the delegates to the 
Mecklenburg convention, the leading spirits of 



Samue) Finley, fifth preaident of the College of New 
Jersey 1761-^; h. in Connty ATm*gb, IreUnd, Feb., 171S, 
tame to Philadelphia 1734 ; ordained at Neir Bruoawifk 
1742,: d. July 17, 1766. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



363 



which were Princetonians, was founded by Joseph 
Alexander. 

Xor were the early graduates of the college less 
famous in secular life. Dr. William Burnet, an 
early president of the New^ Jersey Medical So- 
ciety; Colonel Nathaniel Scudder, of Monmouth 
County, the only member of Congress killed in the 
Revolution; Jonathan Odell, rector of Saint Mary's, 
Burlington, the Tory satirist; the distinguished 
patriot of Newark, Alexander Macwhorter; the 
Rev. William Tennent, Jr.; Dr. Benjamin Rush, of 
Philadelphia ; Rev. Jonathan Edwards, Jr. ; Luther 
Martin, attorney-general of Maryland during the 
Revolution; Colonel Francis Barber, of Elizabeth, 
New Jersey; William Churchill Houston, five 
times member of Congress from New Jersey; 
Senator Frederick Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; 
Gunning Bedford, governor of Delaware; Philip 
Freneau, the poet of the Revolution; President 
James Madison; United States Attorney-General 
William Bradford; Vice-President Aaron Burr; 
Rev. Philip Vicars Fithian, of Cumberland Coun- 
ty, New Jersey; "Light Horse Harry" Lee, of 
Revolutionary fame; Governor Aaron Ogden, of 
New Jersey; and Chief Justice Andrew Kirkpat- 
rick, of New Jersey, embrace but a part of the 
names of men who, between 1748 and 1775, re- 
ceived their degrees from the college. 

In the exciting times marking the opening of 




Aahbal Qre«a, eightli presKit. 
Jersey 1812-22; 6. in Hanover, N 
the BeToUtionAry War; gntd. m xi-m; 
of Coagr«as 179i-lS00; editor "OKriHtUii A 
" The A.M«uibly'« Ma^rxma " ; d. May m IS 
|>hi«. 



364 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



the Revolutionary War a further attempt was 
made to establish a college in New Jersey. The 
movement was led by the ministry of the Re- 
formed Dutch Church, and in 1766, under royal 
charter. Queen's College, now Rutgers College, 
came into existence. Owing to legal difficulties 
and lack of immediate support a second charter 
was granted the college in 1770. As was the case 
in the establishment of the College of New Jer- 
sey a contention arose between the liberal and 
conservative elements in the church. Consequent- 
ly the ministers and congregations, who took part 
in the movement, were divided into two parts. 
Both the Coetus, or progressive party, and the Con- 
ferentie, or conservative element, agreed upon the 
need of an educated ministry. The main part in 
difference was the advisability of separating the 
American churches from those in Holland. As 
stated by the Rev. David D. Demarest, this in- 
volved the problems of ministerial training, li- 
censure, and ordination, particularly as there 
were in New Jersey more churches than there 
were ministers. A battle royal was waged, with 
the result that it was decided to establish a school 
in New Jersey. Hackensack and New Brunswick 
contended for the prize, and the latter city, owing 
to the amount of her subscriptions, won. 

Scarcely had the church become established ere 
the Revolution broke in all its fury. Unable to 




ri;tukks o<)i-i,eok in 1842. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



365 



withstand so severe a test, the career of the col- 
lege was beset with difficulties, and it was not 
until 1808 that Eutgers was able to sustain suc- 
cessfully her position. The history of the college 
therefore properly belongs to a later period. 

Accustomed as we are to a plenitude of books, 
magazines, pamphlets, and especially newspapers, 
the dearth of reading matter, during colonial 
times, is astonishing. Such books as reached Ne^#/ 
Jersey from England or Scotland, or were printed 
in America, during this period, were largely of a 
religious character and distinctively controversial. 
These, together with the statute laws, proceedings 
of colonial legislatures, and an occasional pam- 
phlet upon some current political topic, with a 
smattering of novels and the classics, embraced 
the range of general literature. Magazines, in the 
latter day sense, were unknown, although the 
]Vet^ American Magazine appeared in 1758 in Wood- 
bridge, one of the earliest ventures of its kind in 
the colonies. 

From the newspapers and the almanacs the 
mass of the people derived most of their informa- 
tion concerning public affairs. Not until the lat- 
ter part of the year 1777 was there a newspaper 
published in New Jersey, when Isaac Collins es- 
tablished his New Jersey Gazette at Burlington. 
Until that period the newspapers of Philadelphia 
and New York had a limited circulation through 




2^ 



G ^tr\<y^t4>t' 



Ir« CondJct, president />o. Um. of (JUM-Iiii (uow Riitgerbi 
College, nOHSlO; 6. Oruige, N. J., Feb. 21, 1764; grad. 
College of New Jersey, ITSS; licpnBed t« jiTeach at New 
Bnmawick i:t«i , d 1810. 



366 NEW JEESEY AS A COL 

the settled portions of the colony. The colonial 
journals contained but few of the features of the 
modern newspaper. Editorial utterance, as dis- 
tinct from news, had no assigned place, comment 
and criticism frequently taking the form of 
signed letters, usually written under the nom-de- 
plume of a famous Greek or Roman. News, as 
such, was presented unattractively, being written 
with no typographic or reportorial touches. Per- 
sonal affairs were eliminated, except fulsome no- 
tices of marriages, panegyrics of the dead, and 
complimentary mention of the movements of 
prominent officials. Maritime matters received 
much attention, while the rest of the news con- 
sisted of European letters from two to six months 
old and a line or two of local happenings. Poems 
by ambitious young colonists, written in a stilted 
sentimental vein, with copious allusions to the 
classics, and dissertations upon the general social 
conditions of the colonies and observations of the 
moral state of man, comprised the literary efforts 
of even the most prominent sheets. Scattered 
through the columns were advertisements, which, 
as they mirror current affairs, give a clear image 
of the life of the people. The subjects embraced 
in the advertisements of the period are numerous. 
New goods offered by merchants, rewards for 
runaway slaves and redemptioners, notices not to 
trust or harbor eloping wives, property sales by 



ONY AND AS A STATE 367 

sheriffs, executors, and other officials, breeding 
horses and their pedigrees, calls for investments 
in lotteries established for purposes more or less 
worthy, announcements of printed funeral ser- 
mons and other pamphlets are most frequent. 

The newspaper, owing to its cost, was cherished 
as a rarity. As it was beyond the reach of many, 
the custom prevailed in some parts of New Jer- 
sey of reading the news in the public room of tav- 
erns, where amid the clink of glasses and stone- 
ware jugs the week's doings in the cities or in 
more distant parts were presented to an anxious 
party of listeners. Nor was this custom in some 
parts of the State discontinued until the opening 
of the Civil War. 

Beside the newspapers the almanacs were ex- 
tremely popular. Those issued in New York and 
Philadelphia contained the sessions of the colo- 
nial courts, lists of crown officers, mail routes, 
rates of exchange of money issued by the colonies, 
how to convert " York " shillings into " Jersey " 
shillings, or both into Pennsylvania currency, ob- 
servations upon the possible state of the weather, 
" remarkable occurrences," particularly meteoro- 
logical, directions for the proper time to plant 
crops, vegetable remedies for common diseases, 
and a series of blank spaces for the purpose 
of making record of births, marriages, deaths, 



368 



NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 



barn raisings, corn and rye plantings, and like 
subjects of human interest. 

Such was the status of education in New Jersey 
during the period of colonial life, in days when 
the clank of the flashing sword was far sweeter 
music to the ear than the scratch of the humble 
pen. 



BilSCHRYVTNGE 

Vnn^ 

NIEUVV- NEDERLANT 

( CPDcltjcI? fjcttcsentoooiJjigO in ^tart is ) - 

Begrijpcnde de Nature, Aert, gelegcntheyt en vrucht- 

baerheyt van Iiet ftive Lant ; rnitfgaders dc proffij telijckecn- 

de gewenfte tocrallen, di: aldaer toe onderhout dcr Memcbea , (loo 

ujt bin rdven lia rtn buyteu ingcbricht ) gcrondcn wordca. 

A z, > M s D s 

JDemaniete m tm^ljtmtpm cpswfcljappttt 

• l>mlt)c!3^tUKnof(;^aturclIcnDant)tn9antt^ 

JEen byfocder vcrhael vanden wonderlijckeo'Aert 

cade het Weefcn d« B E V ■£ R S , 

Daer Noch By Gevoeomt Ij 

Cm^ifcoariS obnr bt celtflmthtpt ban Nieuw Ncdcrlandc , 

Qlfftijai ten Nedcrlandts Fauiot , flUX ttU 

■ Nicuw Ncderlander. 
"Befchrntn iter 

A D K. 1 A E N vander D O N C 'K, 

ficyder Rjcchtcn Doaoor, die tegheawodp- 

digh noch in Nicuw Ncderiant ij. 




t'A E M S T F. L D A M, 



25p Evctc Nieuv'cniiof, 25occh-to£ri«)optr/ uooimitittp't 

flu)Ianethi-t^t)j!Jf-l)OEt(t/ Ajmo i6f J, 
AN EARLY DUTCH JOURNAL OF EXPLORATION. 



C H A P T E K X X I T 

New Jersey in England's Wars with Spatn 
AND France 



THE first of the series of Old World 
wars, in which England was direct- 
ly involved and which affected her 
colony of New Jersey, was that 
known as the War of the Spanish 
Succession, which, having been begun in 1702, 
lasted until the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713. It was 
declared by England against France. 

In the New World little more than echoes were 
heard of the contest, yet upon one occasion, at 
least, the struggle came close to the hearts of the 
colonists. Late in June, 1702, according to the 
newspapers of the day, a French privateer lying 
off Sandy Hook landed a party of men " at Never- 
sinks " and plundered two houses. Probably ow- 
ing to the establishment of a strong guard on the 
Monmouth shore she sailed away. In July a Bor- 
deau privateer appeared off the Capes of the 
Delaware, captured a merchant sloop, and chased 
a vessel to Sandy Hook, where other captures were 
made. From the harbor of New York three priva- 
teers were sent out to search for the Frenchman. 
In 1705 other French privateers were seen upon 
the New Jersey coast, and after making captures 
sped away to their rendezvous, the French West 
Indies. Other than the affair at Neversink no ac- 
tion upon land apparently took place. 

Upon the 19th of October, 1739, war with Spain 
was declared by England. By early commercial 




372 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



treaties it had been agreed that the coasts of Span- 
ish colonies should be prohibited to British ves- 
sels unless under stress of weather, and that the 
right of search for contraband goods should lie 
with both nations. Spain, in view of the fact that 
British ships continually traded with Spanish 
colonies, asserted the right of search. This was 
resented by the people of England, and a general 
European war ensued. Among the operations in- 
cident to the beginnings of the struggle was an 
expedition against the Spanish West Indies. In 
October, 1740, under Lord Cathcart, thirty ships 
of the line left England, carrying a large force of 
sailors and land troops. During the same month 
there departed from Amboy, among other places, 
bodies of provincial troops, some of which were 
from New York. Three companies of volunteers 
from New Jersey sailed down the Delaware, and, 
joining the others, met Admiral Vernon at Ja- 
maica, January 9, 1741. 

During the preceding May the coast of New Jer- 
sey had been terrorized by the appearance of 
" three Sloops, a Snow and a Scooner," Spanish 
privateers, which made several captures. Their 
successes led the New Jersey Legislature to vote 
£400 toward the support of two privateers, being 
built by subscription, which were " to look after 
these Spaniards." From Jamaica the expedition 
proceeded to Cartagena, where, according to the 





ONY AND AS A STATE 373 

Boston News Letter (June 25- July 2, 1741), it is 
reported one thousand men died in ten days. In 
all, owing to the advent of the rainy season and 
disease, eight thousand deaths occurred, although 
" the Officers and Men from North America," 
among whom were Captain Farmer and Captain 
Thomas, of New Jersey, " behaved themselves 
with much bravery," The expedition, abandoned, 
returned to Jamaica, and was almost forgotten in 
the rage of the religious controversy of the new 
and old side movements. 

In 1744 the struggle between England and 
France broke out anew, being known in history 
as King George's War. In the spring of 1745 Gov- 
ernor Shirley, of Massachusetts, designed an at- 
tack upon the French at Cape Breton and Louis- 
burg, their capital, which, considered an impreg- 
nable fortress, was the key to the French posses- 
sions in North America. From the hands of the 
French Massachusetts as well as the rest of New 
England had suffered much, and it was with 
hearty spirit that the colonies entered upon the 
expedition. New Jersey contributed £2,000, of 
which £1,000 was spent in East Jersey produce to 
be shipped for military uses to Boston. Six thou- 
sand men, among whom were Jerseymen, sailed 
to the northward, and Louisburg was taken June 
19, 1745. 

Immediately a great naval force was designed 



374 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

in France to scourge the North American coast. 
To ward off this evil, as well as to afford protec- 
tion against the French privateers which har- 
assed shipping between Sandy Hook and Cape 
May, the Legislature made provision of men and 
money. Upon the 12th of June, 1746, President 
of Council Hamilton laid before the Legislature 
the plan of the British ministry upon a proposed 
invasion of Canada. The Legislature resolved to 
equip five hundred men, but so great was the de- 
sire to enlist that six hundred and sixty militia 
were secured, five companies being credited to New 
Jersey under Captains Parker, Dagworthy, Ste- 
phens, Ware, and Leonard, and the sixth to New 
York. Early in September the Jersey troops, " in 
their Complement of Battoes," left Perth Amboy 
by water, well equipped, for their point of rendez- 
vous, Albany. Commissioners to have care of 
victualing and clothing these troops were ap- 
pointed by the Assembly. 

Upon the arrival of the provincials at Albany 
the promised English reinforcements failed to ap- 
pear, and through the long winter months the 
soldiers were engaged in protecting the frontier or 
in writing to the newspapers savage criticisms of 
the failure of the New Jersey commissioners to 
supply proper arms, food, and clothing. To these 
strictures the commissioners and their friends 
made prompt replies. In the meantime the con- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 375 

dition of the New Jersey troops in Albany was 
deplorable. So urgent was the case that Colonel 
Peter Schuyler, commander of the five companies 
of Jerseymen, laid a petition before the Legisla- 
ture setting forth the hardships of the rank and 
file for want of pay. Immediate relief was solic- 
ited by the patriotic and philanthropic Governor 
Belcher as " an Act of Justice and Goodness, and 
of doing Honour to this government." 

But the Assembly, which had already spent 
large sums of money, refused to take further ac- 
tion. In this crisis Colonel Schuyler suppressed 
an incipient mutiny and advanced to the men 
funds sufficient for their purposes, an example 
of generosity as spontaneous as it was rare. With 
the ending of the war by the Treaty of Aix-la- 
Chapelle, in 1748, the troops were withdrawn 
from Albany and the " intended expedition 
against Canada " became a memory. 

In 1754 war between England and France broke 
out afresh, the struggle being known to the colo- 
nists as the French and Indian War. In the 
spring of that year Governor Belcher addressed 
the House of Assembly upon the relations be- 
tween the home government and France, to which 
a committee of the house made a reply asserting 
its loyalty to the crown, and stating practically 
that New Jersey had no available money with 
which to aid the frontier colonies in their expedi- 



376 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



tions against the French or their defenses against 
the Indians. This reply the governor character- 
ized as " unusual if not without precedent," agree- 
ing, however, with the house in a further declara- 
tion that there should be a " strict Union among 
all His Majesty's Colonies on this important Af- 
fair." But the ill-starred expedition against the 
French upon the Ohio, and the return of the regu- 
lars and Virginia militia from Fort Necessity, 
brought the Assembly to an understanding of the 
common danger. Upon the 24th of April, 1755, 
appeared the governor's proclamation stating that 
the Legislature had made provision for " Pay, 
Cloathing, and Subsistence of 500 Men," to be un- 
der the command of Colonel Peter Schuyler. 

Already the people were stirred. A letter from 
Trenton, dated April 18, 1755, says that " every 
body is willing to contribute a Mite against the 
French and the Country Fellows list like mad." 
As early as March of the same year the Legisla- 
ture had appropriated £500 for the subsistence of 
the royal forces during their passage through the 
colony, and had prohibited the exportation of war- 
like stores to the French dominions, while the 
gallant Colonel Schuyler had requested and ob- 
tained the leave of the governor to raise four hun- 
dred men at his own charire to march to the de- 



fense of New York City or elsewhere in ^^Lgj^ of 



,j- 



French attack. To the^^ij^^se^ibf the coloniej 




.-a^-:^':^; 



VIKW (ty NKW YORC AT THIS PKRIOD. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 377 

Jerseymen rallied. By May 12 four of the five 
New Jersey companies, according to the Pennsyl- 
vania Journal of May 15, 1755, were nearly com- 
pleted. In Morris County '' Captain Nathaniel 
Rusco * * * had such extraordinary Success 
in beating up for Volunteers as to have more than 
his Complement in less than Eleven Days Time." 
Nor were these efforts to protect the frontiers too 
early put in motion. By August, " on account of 
the Scalping Indians,'' refugees from the frontiers 
of Pennsylvania entered Reading on their way to 
New Jersey and others were soon expected. 

The scattered settlements along the upper Dela- 
ware and Susquehanna in November became 
greatly frightened by the reported incursions of 
Indians, allies of the French. Beyond the forks 
of the Delaware^ at Easton, the wild country lay 
exposed to the depredations of bands of maraud- 
ing Indians. Early in November, 1755, Colonel 
John Anderson with four hundred Sussex militia 
joined one hundred and fifty men under the com- 
mand of Captain Craig, of Pennsylvania, and, de- 
sirous of powder, sent an agent to purchase some 
of the Moravian missionaries at Bethlehem. This 
request being refused. Colonel Anderson threat- 
ened to burn their town, whereupon compliance 
was made and the powder furnished. The alarm 
in some measure being false, many of the militia 
were sent to their homes. While the powder epi- 



378 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

sode was denied by friends of the Moravians the 
terror of the inhabitants was no less great. Fol- 
lowing the expedition of Colonel Anderson the 
Indians burned the Moravian town of Gnaden- 
hutten, in Pennsylvania, about thirty miles from 
Easton, and massacred the inhabitants. To the 
assistance of the poor people of the " back settle- 
ments " the militia of Morris and Sussex Coun- 
ties marched rapidly, while calls were made upon 
the militia of Essex, Middlesex, Hunterdon, and 
Somerset Counties. For the defense of Sussex 
County roughly fortified places were erected at 
Broadheads, Cal verts Mills, and other points. Into 
New Jersey poured the self-exiled Pennsylvan- 
ians, evacuating the ruined country fifty miles 
above Easton. With their cattle, corn, and best 
household goods they left their " villages laid in 
ashes," their " men, women, and children cruelly 
mangled and massacred, * * ♦ hacked, and 
covered all over with wounds." To the New Jer- 
sey government, owing to the apathy or neglect 
of the Pennsylvania authorities, Samuel Dupui, 
a man of large property living in Pennsylvania 
near the Delaware Water Gap, made application 
for men and officers to guard his home, offering 
for their support his plantation or £50 per annum. 
Later Dupui, according to rumor, removed to New 
Jersey, whereupon the Indians burned his home 
" and every Thing else they could find." 



ONY AND AS A STATE 379 

In the latter part of June, 1755, the New Jersey 
forces under Colonel Peter Schuyler had em- 
barked for Albany. With him were troops from 
New York and New England under the command 
of Major-General John Johnson. In the best of 
spirits the attack upon Fort Ticonderoga was 
planned, the results of which engagement acted as 
a solace to Braddock's defeat near Fort Duquesne 
during the previous July. Subsequently some of 
the troops were discharged, small garrisons being 
retained at Forts Edward and William Henry. 

In April, 1756, another armed force under Colo- Ct^'d''-^'''^ 

nel Schuyler was sent to Albany, the atrocities of 
the savages having drawn New Jersey, New York, 
and Pennsylvania into a close bond of union. In schuyler arms 

May the Indians again appeared in Sussex Coun- 
ty, at Paulius Kill, from which place sixty fam- 
ilies removed to Amwell. To protect the province 
and to aid its neighbors the Legislature, in June, 
passed an act raising £17,500 for supporting its 
seven hundred and fifty men then in pay, the col- 
ony already having contributed £57,500 to the 
war. For the first and last time in the history 
of New Jersey a proclamation was issued upon 
June 2d, 1756, declaring that as the Lenni- 
Lenape had violated their treaties and become al- 
lies of other hostile Indians they were " Enemies, 
Rebels, and Traitors to his most sacred Majesty." 
To every one " not in the Province Pay " a reward 



-"""■ ■ "■■"I" !■ 



3 



380 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




of one hundred and fifty Spanish dollars was of- 
fered for taking alive and delivering any male 
Indian above fifteen years of age, one hundred 
and thirty Spanish dollars for killing or destroy- 
ing any male Indian above fifteen years of age, 
one hundred and thirty Spanish dollars for the 
body of any male or female Indian under the age 
of fifteen, and one hundred and fifty Spanish dol- 
lars for every inhabitant of the colony retaken 
from Indian captors. To friendly Indians, in ac- 
cordance with the terms of a treaty held in Cross- 
wicks in February, 1756, protection was offered 
provided the Indians remained within the bounds 
of the province. But owing to the treaty of peace 
concluded on July 11, between Sir William John- 
son and the Shawanese and Delawares, Governor 
Belcher, upon July 23, withdrew his proclamation 
declaring the Delawares to be traitors. 

With the army in the north efforts were being 
made to carry out the elaborate plan of campaign 
which embraced an attack upon Niagara, the re- 
duction of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, the be- 
siegement of Fort Duquesne, and the intimida- 
tion of Canada. But upon August 14, 1756, Gen- 
eral Montcalm with five thousand French and In- 
dians captured the forts garrisoned by the Eng- 
lish and Americans at Oswego, and among the 
fourteen hundred prisoners took the gallant Col- 
onel Schuyler, who was released from Quebec 



Tf 



^' 




ONY AND AS A STATE 381 

in October, 1757, but while in confinement had 
supported his fellow captives. 

In the summer campaign of 1757 disaster came 
to the New Jersey troops upon the 21st of July. 
In a water attack upon Fort Ticonderoga Colonel 
John Parker, who had succeeded Colonel Schuyler 
in command of a party of three hundred and fifty, 
lost all but seventy-five of his men. Soon there- 
after Fort William Henry fell into the hands of 
the French. The excitement in New York and 
New Jersey was intense, as it appeared that not 
only Albany but the Hudson Valley would be 
wrested from England. In the midst of this tur- 
moil Colonel Schuyler returned from Quebec. In 
New York City and Newark bonfires, illumina- 
tions, cannonading, and health drinking marked 
his home coming. Upon this occasion some 
verses, supposed to have been written by Annis 
Boudinot Stockton, were printed in the New York 
Mercury, the concluding lines being : 

Csesarges Shore with Acclamation rings, 
And Welcome Schuyler, every Shepherd sings. 
See for thy Brows the Laurel is prepar'd 
And justly deem'd, a Patriot, thy Reward 
Ev'n future Ages Shall enroll thy Name, 
In Sacred Annals of immortal Fame. 

For the campaign of 1758 a call was made for 
one thousand men, the colony to provide one coat, 
a pair of cloth breeches, a white shirt, a check 




382 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




shirt, two pair of shoes, two pair of stockings, one 
pair of ticken breeches, a hat, blanket, canteen, 
and hatchet for each recruit under a bounty of 
£12 to serve until September 15, with pay at 
£1. 13. 6. per month and "a dollar to drink His 
Majesty's Health." Late in May the New Jersey 
Provincial Regiment set out for Albany, under 
Colonel Johnston, arrayed in " Uniform blue, 
faced with red, grey Stockings, and Buckskin 
Breeches. * * * They are accounted a Parcel 
of robust sturdy Men." This was the first appear- 
ance of the " Jersey Blues." 

Upon July 8 occurred another unsuccessful at- 
tack on Fort Ticonderoga, garrisoned by five 
thousand French, the British regulars and provin- 
cials numbering fifteen thousand, conveyed in 
three hundred whaleboats and one thousand bat- 
teaux. In this unfortunate expedition the I*Tew 
Jersey regimental loss was not heavy, as the 
troops of the colony occupied a position in the rear 
of the advance. 

During the summer the Indian outrages in the 
upper valley of the Delaware continued, but amid 
the tales of butchery one somewhat picturesque 
incident becomes prominent. It is the reward 
made by the colony by act of the Legislature, Sep- 
tember 12, when to Sergeant John Van Tile and a 
' lad named Titsort, who had distinguished them- 
ery upon the frontier, silver medals 



ONY AND AS A STATE 383 

were directed to be presented to them. The medal 
was to be the size of a silver dollar " whereon shall 
be inscribed the Bust or Figure of an Indian pros- 
trate at the Feet of the said Van Tile and Lad 
aforesaid. » • » Which Medals the said Van 
Tile and Lad aforesaid shall or may wear in View, 
at all such publick Occasions which they may hap- 
pen to Attend, to excite an Emulation and Kindle 
a martial Fire in the Breast of the Spectators, so 
truly essential in this Time of general War." This 
is the only case of such action ever having been 
taken in the colony of New Jersey. 

The war now draws toward a close. During Oc- 
tober-November, 1758, Governor Bernard con- 
cluded at Easton a memorable treaty with the 
Indians. Two hundred chiefs represented thirteen 
nations, which were the eight confederates of New 
York State and the five, among whom were the 
Delawares, depending upon the confederates. The 
summer campaign of 1759 was directed mainly 
against the French, their Indian allies having 
been won over largely to English interests. In 
spite of the fact that New Jersey had lost one 
thousand men out of fifteen thousand liable for 
military duty the Assembly, on March 2, resolved 
to raise one thousand additional militia, recruit- 
ing offices being opened at Salem, Gloucester, 
Burlington, Bordentown, and Newton. For the 
accommodation of troops barracks were ordered 



384 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

erected in Burlington, Trenton, New Brunswick, 
Amboy, and Elizabeth, suitably built and con- 
veniently equipped. Once more Colonel Peter 
Schuyler appears in command. In May forty 
sail of transports arrived in New York, and in 
June, both regulars and provincials having ar- 
rived in Albany, they set off for Fort Edward. 
During this campaign Quebec fell, which occasion 
was marked by demonstrations of joy when the 
news reached New Jersey. Again in 1760 the 
colony contributed one thousand men to the cause, 
and a company of New Jersey rangers did most 
effective service at Oswego in July. Nor was 
the colony less active in 1761, when the Assembly 
voted to raise six hundred effective men for serv- 
ice on the Canadian border. The colonies had 
kept an army of twenty-five thousand men in the 
field, had lost thirty thousand, and expended a 
vast sum for the maintenance of British empire in 
North America. As a result New France passed 
into the hands of the English crown. 

The war was now transferred to distant points. 
For three years attention was directed toward the 
establishment of England's rights in the western 
part of New York. In 1762, 1763, and 1764 New 
Jersey responded to the calls for new levies and 
the demands for money, which led ultimately to 
the conquest of Niagara. But of more interest 
was the expedition against the West India Is- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 385 

lands. In 1762 Spain entered upon the contest 
with England, Early in that year British troops, 
with an imposing naval array, captured Martin- 
ico, Grenada, Saint Lucien, and Saint Vincent, 
while in June a large English force, in which was 
a regiment of New Jersey provincials, appeared 
before Havana and subdued the Morro upon 
the 11th of August. The loss of the attacking 
party was slight; that of the Spaniards is said to 
have been one thousand. In 1763 the war was 
formally closed by treaty between the powers. 




A .> liNIJlAJN 



CHAPTER XXIII 

From Cornbury to I'kaxkltx 



THE political history of the colony of 
New Jersey between the recall of 
Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, and 
the appointment of William Frank- 
lin, as governors, would be incom- 
plete without at least a passing reference to the 
governors who occupied that position during half 
a century. In New Jersey as in the other colo- 
nies the chief executive gave to political action 
the color of his personality, which, while not al- 
ways permanent, is at least indicative of what- 
ever influence he might be able to exert in the 
administration of public affairs. 

The successor of Lord Cornbury was John, Lord 
Lovelace, who, though unacquainted with the du- 
ties of the office, after his arrival in New York in 
1708 met the Assembly in a fair spirit, and had not 
death removed him within a few months he would 
probably have put into execution some plans for 
the betterment of the colony. By his conciliatory 
and suggestive action, however, Lord Lovelace did 
something to quiet the bitterness caused by the 
acts of Lord Cornbury. Whatever good Lord 
Lovelace may have accomplished was rendered 
nugatory by the administration of his successor, 
Major Richard Ingoldsby, who entered office by 
virtue of his position as lieutenant-governor. His 
brutality to his wife and children, whom he left 
to starve in Albany, his hot-headedness in quar- 




^^r 



390 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 



w. 



/ KM. 




reling with the Quakers, and the generally abus- 
ive tone of his addresses to the Assembly led to 
the revocation of his authority. Even Lord Corn- 
bury would not allow Ingoldsby to act as lieuten- 
ant-governor of New York and New Jersey, al- 
though his partisan and armed with a royal com- 
mission! 

A picturesque and decidedly unique character 
was that of Governor Robert Hunter, who pub- 
lished his commission in New Jersey during the 
summer of 1710. Hunter was a Scotchman, who, 
running away from his master, an apothecary, had 
entered the British army and rose to the rank of 
brigadier-general. His excellent address, ready 
£, wit, and quick though not brilliant perception 
won for him a social position which he improved 
by marriage with a woman of the nobility. Sent 
to Virginia as governor of that province, he was 
captured by the French, but was later released, 
whereupon he came to New Jersey as the succes- 
sor of the hated Ingoldsby. 

Turbulence marked the official career of Gov- 
ernor Hunter, a condition of affairs directly trace- 
able to the fomented state of provincial politics 
during the Cornbury-Ingoldsby regimes. For the 
first time in the history of the province the gov- 
ernor and Assembly were in accord. By his side 
stood Lewis Morris, the acknowledged head of the 
popular party, but in opposition to the governor 



George I, h. May 28, 1660; Elector of Hanover 1098; 
r">,.v,pri n^f u i-id- ,t June 9, 1787. 



(MJKNBURY 

Born Oxt'orfisliir. , I^iiglaiid; educated at 
(U'lieva; <»iie of tiisi t<» des^it James II for 
Prince of Oran^r W'Miani. 111. 

Appointed uu of New \*ork and 

New Jersey 1701; .lixived Xew York May 
3, 170'2; rouiov^ed by Queen Anne 1708; 
thrown into prison; J elea>«<ed on death of 
fatJHM antl b<^<'anie tlii^d Knr] f (^larendon. 




(KDWARD HYDE.) 




BIRTHPLACE OF LORD CORNBURY : OXFORDSHIRE. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



391 



was his council, controlled by Jeremiah Basse, 
formerly governor of East and West Jersey and 
a Anabaptist minister. According to the state- 
ments made by Governor Hunter the council had 
" avowedly opposed the government in most 
things," for which reason he prorogued the As- 
sembly as a useless body. 

After representations to the crown the council 
was reconstructed, the queen removing Daniel 
Coxe, Peter Sonmans, and others, who took the 
occasion to visit England in an endeavor to pre-* 
vent, in 1714, upon the accession of King George 
I, the renewal of Hunter's commission. To ac- 
complish this end Sonmans had removed the pub- 
lic records of the province to England. At last, 
in justice to himself and in vindication of his ad- 
ministration. Governor Hunter directed the Assem- 
bly to meet and proceed to the conduct of the af- 
fairs of the province. Daniel Ooxe, who was 
speaker of the Assembly, was expelled, and, al- 
though he appealed to the King, the crown sus- 
tained the governor. In 1719 the governor re- 
turned to Europe, being succeeded by William 
Burnet, who found the province in a state of com- 
parative tranquillity. Unlike his predecessor. Gov- 
ernor Burnet was a man of culture, fond of books, 
himself a writer upon religious and scientific mat- 
ters, and, except for his constant impecuniosity, 
generally permitted the Legislature to have its 







GOVERNOR BURNET. 



WilJiam Burnet, h. at The Hague, Holland, Marcb, 1)>S8 
»on of liiehoii Burnet; <t. Sept. 7, 1729. 



392 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




own way. Burnet found his colony of thirty thou- 
sand people heavily in debt, without a metallic 
circulating medium, and relying for exchange 
upon a paper money of uncertain value. Such dis- 
cussion as arose was largely upon the usual ques- 
tion of salary. In 1728 Burnet was transferred to 
the governorship of Massachusetts. He was fol- 
lowed by John Montgomerie, whose brief and un- 
eventful administration of three years was main- 
ly characterized by the renewal of an attempt, first 
made in Burnet's time, to separate the governor- 
ship of New Jersey from that of New York. For 
this purpose a petition, in 1730, was sent to the 
King. The death of Montgomerie upon July 
1, 1731, threw upon Lewis Morris, president of 
council, the duties of the governorship, which he 
assumed until the arrival of William Cosby, who 
quarreled bitterly with Chief Justice Lewis Mor- 
ris, but maintained moderately pleasant relations 
with the Assembly. Cosby died in 1736, where- 
upon the government devolved upon John Ander- 
son, president of council, who in a few weeks also 
died, his successor being Andrew Hamilton. 

During the administration of Andrew Hamil- 
ton there were submitted to the crown certain 
" Reasons " why New Jersey should have a sepa- 
rate governor. As showing the social conditions 
of the province in 1736 these " Reasons " fall with- 
in well defined lines. From maritime consider- 



ONY AND AS A STATE 393 

atious it Avas urged that New York and New Jer- 
sey be separated because all New Jersey vessels 
must be registered in New York at a cost of £10, 
and that timber-preserving acts and statutes en- 
couraging ship building could be passed without 
prejudice to Ne^^ York. Under a separate govern- 
ment trade in the colony and the number of ves- 
sels would increase " and consequently a recipro- 
cal advantage redound to Great Britain, by im- 
ploying more hands in making Tarr, Pitch and 
Turpentine." 

Under the joint system European Immigrants, 
particularly Palatines and other foreign Protest- 
ants, were unwilling to settle in one colony de- 
pendent upon anotlier. Furthermore oflficial sala- 
ries paid in New York were spent out of New 
Jersey, and judges " countenance the New York 
lawyers so that they carry away thither all the 
Business and Money, whilst their own are dis- 
couradg'd and Reduced." Writs were delayed in 
execution, councils W(^re not held in New Jersey, 
the militia was not kept in discipline, and to sum 
up all argument " the heart burnings amongst 
the Inhabitants, and the Grievances of the Coun- 
try are not known and understood, or at least 
never regarded, the governor being free from the 
Noise and Clamour of them, at New York." With 
such a presentation a separate governor was al- 
lowed, and to this office one of the most notable. 



394 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




MORRIS ARMS. 



if not the most notable, man of his time, Lewis 
Morris, was elevated. 

Lewis Morris had early espoused the cause of 
the people. In the time of Cornbury he was ex- 
pelled from council and had drafted a remon- 
strance against the governor addressed to Queen 
Anne, and was an earnest advocate of popular 
rights. As a runaway lad from his home in New 
York Lewis Morris had seen much of the severe 
side of colonial life in Virginia, although he later 
became a dignified chief justice of New York. 
But, strange to say, upon his acceptance of the 
office of governor of New Jersey one of his earliest 
acts was to quarrel with his Assembly. Although 
appointed in 1738, and received by the popular 
party in New Jersey with the warmest expressions 
of approval, he, as early as 1739, complains to 
one of the treasury lords " of the insincerity and 
ignorance among the people " and " an inclina- 
tion in the meanest " to have sole direction in the 
affairs of government, a spirit which in his youth 
the governor had done much to foster. Age seems 
to have brought to Morris an overdesire for money, 
and he quarreled with the Assembly about the 
support of the colony until the members finally 
refused to take legislative action until he assented 
to their desires. Before the usual compromise 
was made Lewis Morris died, in 1746, and the 
government was again administered for a year by 



I 



Lewis MoiriB, (V. Mew York City 1671 ; judge of theN'-,* 
•'ersey superior Court, 1892 ; member of Council and Aw- 
senibly; chief justice of New York and New Jersey ; St»t9 

councillor 1710to 1738; acting governor of Niw i '"'-' 

till his death May 31, 1746. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



395 



John Hamilton. Two noteworthy events occurred 
during Hamilton's short occupancy — the granting 
of the first charter to the College of New Jersey, 
and the aid the colony gave toward the Canada 
expedition in the French and Indian War. 

The administration of John Reading, who as 
president of council succeeded John Hamilton, 
was marked by riots in Perth Amboy — the cul- 
mination of agitation which commenced as early 
as 1670. The dispute grew out of titles derived 
from proprietary boards, in which an intense feel- 
ing had been generated, owing to the demands 
for quit-rents made by the proprietors. 

In Governor Jonathan Belcher, scholar, man of 
affairs, and for several years chief executive of 
Massachusetts, New Jersey had a man of intelli- 
gence, but severely puritanical in his views. Pub- 
lishing his commission as governor in Amboy, 
August 10, 1747, Governor Belcher removed to 
Burlington, where he resided for several years, de- 
voting his time to statecraft and the advancement 
of the doctrines of George Whitefield. Dissatis- 
fied with the laxity of the observance of Sunday in 
Burlington, he drove frequently to Philadelphia, 
with coach and four, there to worship in the Pres 
byterian churches. But even this act was "a 
apparent desecration of the Sabbath " to one o 
his "conscientious scruples," says John White 
head, entertainingly, in his "Civil and Judicial 




,::,,/^mJ ^(m^ 



396 



NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 




fUiAr-n/^ 



-K 



History of New Jersey," and the practice was 
abandoned. While attending the commencement 
exercises of the College of New Jersey in 1756 
Governor Belcher was seized with a paralytic 
stroke, and, in spite of some relief afforded by an 
electrical apparatus sent him by Benjamin Frank- 
lin, he died in August, 1757. His friend, 
the Rev. Aaron Burr, president of the College 
of New Jersey, who died in September of the same 
year, preached a funeral sermon upon the occa- 
sion of the governor's burial. While he had some 
disputes with the Assembly concerning the ques- 
tion of the support of the government Belcher's 
devoted services to the colony caused him to be 
remembered with a sincere affection. 

In rapid succession Thomas Pownall, lieutenant- 
governor, and John Reading, president of coun- 
cil, assumed the duties of the office pending the 
arrival, upon the 15th of June, 1758, of Francis 
Bernard. The most distinguishing act of his ad- 
ministration was the treaty with the Indians, con- 
cluded at Easton during the month of October, 
1758. Governor Bernard two years later was re- 
moved to Massachusetts, his successor being 
Thomas Boone, who held office for the space of 
one year. Last before the advent of William 
Franklin was Josiah Hardy, who after a few 
months was recalled to England, being tendered 
an appointment as consul at Cadiz, Spain. 



\»ron Burr, clergynAB ; second preaident of the College 
of New Jersey 174ft^7 ; 6. in Fairfield, Conn., Jan. 4, 1716 ; 
grad. Tale 1735 ; long pastor of the FreebyteriaD Chorcb at 
Newark, where his soi^ Aaroo wae bom ; d. Sept, 34, 17.^7. 



CHAPTER X X I ^^ 
The Last of the Roya.i. Oovmrnors 



IN THE closing years of the administration 
of William Franklin, the last Royal gov- 
ernor of the colony of New Jersey 
there is something akin to pathos in the 
gallant but hopeless battle which he 
waged in support of the crown. Accused as 
he has been of shifting from side to side, his seem- 
ing compromises were, as expressed in his own 
words, too evidently in the interest of possible 
reconciliation to be charged to a baser purpose. 
Before all else he placed his duty to his sovereign, 
and no clearer vision came to him than the belief 
that any measures other than petitions to the 
throne were in Themselves treasonable. To warn 
the people of New Jersey that anarchy and con- 
fusion would destroy the blessings of civil society, 
if any course other than obedience to the law" be 
followed, was the maxim of his administrative pol- 
icy. He saw not beyond his own time; by the Tory 
standards of his day should he be judged. 

The first anti-climax of his administration came 
upon the 8th of February, 1774. Since the 10th 
of November of the preceding year he had held 
the Assembly in check by personal interference 
and the exercise of his official power. The colo- 
nies w^ere ringing with the disasters of Massachu- 
setts and the boldness of the Virginians, who had 
secured the appointment of committees of corre- 
spondence in every other Assembly from Massa- 




WILLIAM FRANKLIN. 

(Prom a Medallion by Flaxpiftn.) 



Williun Frankliu, illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin; 
I,, in Philadelphia 1729; comptroller of the general poat- 
o«c« 1754-56; <l. in England, Nov. 17, 1813; father of Will- 
iam Temple Franklin. 



400 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

chusetts to Georgia. Throughout the session the 
House of Assembly of New Jersey had received let- 
ters and resolutions from various assemblies 
which dealt with the all-absorbing question of 
the common rights and liberties of the colonies. 
From the action of the house, taken as a commit- 
tee of the whole, it is learned that a resolution 
was adopted by the Assembly heartily accepting 
" of the Invitation of a mutual Correspondence 
and Intercourse with our Sister Colonies," and 
that in furtherance of the plan a " Standing Com- 
mittee of Correspondence and Inquiry " was ap- 
pointed. 

This action was the first declaration by the 
representatives of the people of the colony that 
New Jersey had a vital interest in the approach- 
ing contest. The decision had been reached after 
a careful consideration, instituted against the ad- 
vice of Franklin. But, influential as he then was, 
his efforts to prevent the passage of the resolu- 
tion were unavailing, and the following citizens 
were selected upon the new committee: 

James Kinsey, of the City of Burlington; Ste- 
phen Crane, of Essex; Hendrick Fisher, of Somer- 
set; Samuel Tucker, of Hunterdon; John Wether- 
ill, of Middlesex; Robert Freind Price, of Glouces- 
ter; John Hinchman, of Gloucester; John Mehelm, 
of Hunterdon; and Edward Taylor, of Monmouth. 

The duties of this committee were closely de- 




ONY AND AS A STATE 401 

fined, the plan and scope of the inquiries clearly 
indicating the trend of public opinion and the 
nature of the subjects uppermost in popular dis- 
cussion. The members were directed to obtain 
the " most early and authentick Intelligence of 
all Acts and Resolutions of the Parliament of 
Great Britain, or the Proceedings of Administra- 
tion that may have any Relation to, or may affect 
the Liberties and Privileges of. His Majesty's Sub- 
jects in the British Colonies in America, and to 
keep up and maintain a Correspondence and Com- 
munication with our Sister Colonies, respecting 
these important Considerations." The commit- 
tee was also enjoined to furnish a statement of 
the action of New Jersey to the " speakers of the 
Assemblies on the Continent of America " and 
that " they do return the Thanks of the House 
to the Burgesses of Virginia, for their early atten- 
tion to the Liberties of America." 

In a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth, written 
upon the 31st of May, Governor Franklin offers 
an explanation for the action of the New Jersey 
Assembly w^hen he says that the colony " did not 
choose to appear singular " after New York had 
adopted a similar course. To this statement may 
be added that of a member of the committee, who 
gave the reason that New Jersey might eventually 
be placed in the " same predicament with Bos- 



402 NEW JERSEY AS A OOL 

ton," and boldly adds : " Our Committee is well 
disposed in the cause of American Freedom." 

The selection of a committee, composed of men 
whose homes were in various parts of the colony, 
lent to the idea of " Correspondence and Inquiry " 
not only the superior weight of action of an offi- 
cial character, but gave to local movements a dis- 
tinctive claim for strength and stability. It was 
the centralization of social and political forces 
which, in New Jersey, had been slowly moving to 
a common center. 

While the great questions involved were still 
in the stage of argument and constitutional dis- 
cussion, the arguments and the discussions lost 
none of their effectiveness nor vehemence. The 
breach between friends was slowly widening. 
Whig and Tory, under the candles of the taproom 
of the inns, in the furrows of newly-plowed fields, 
in the cabins of coastwise craft, before the doors 
of the meeting houses, in court rooms, and at the 
dusty crossroads, laid out those courses of future 
action which made the flickering spark of hope 
spring into the fire of national life, or brought 
sorrow and disaster to those adherents of the 
crown who were driven, at last, into political and 
social ostracism. But while the governor was 
slowly losing his power over the Assembly his 
council, a more conservative body, still held close 
to the doctrine of the divinity of kingship. Late 



ONY AND AS A STATE 



403 



in January, 1775, the members of council as- 
sured the governor of their zealous attachment 
to the interests of Great Britain and her colonies, 
their sincere loyalty to George III, and of their 
earnest desire, both in their public and private 
capacities, to preserve peace, good order, and a 
dutiful submission to the laws. 

To the Council and Assembly which met 
in January of that year Governor Frank- 
lin spoke fairly and without evident bitter- 
ness. Disclaiming the capacity to decide 
the dispute, he said it was a duty for those 
who conceived themselves aggrieved to aim for 
redress. But it was to be remembered that every 
breach of the constitution, " whether it proceeds 
from the Crown or the People," was in its effects 
equally destructive to the rights of both. The re- 
ply of the house was to a degree equivocal. As- 
serting the loyalty of the members and of their 
assurance to support the crown, the members de- 
clared they were resolved to preserve their con- 
stitutional liberties by every means within their 
power. The governor in turn parried this ill con- 
cealed thrust and said that his advice " came from 
an heart sincerely devoted to my native country, 
whose welfare and happiness depend, as I co 
ceive, upon a plan of conduct very different from 
what has been hitherto adopted." 

So far as the Assembly represented the seuti 



-^^l 





STATUE OF GEORGE III. 



404 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

ment of the people of New Jersey a petition to the 
King adopted by the house February 13, 1775, 
gives in detail the list of grievances of which New 
Jersey as well as the other colonies complained. 
These complaints did not arise, said the petition, 
" from a want of loyalty to your royal person, or 
a disposition to withdraw ourselves from a con- 
stitutional dependence on the British crown, but 
from well grounded apprehensions that our rights 
and liberties are intimately affected by the late 
measures, in their consequences pernicious to the 
welfare and happiness both of Great Britain and 
your Majesty's Colonies." 

The causes for complaint were the subordina- 
tion of civil to military government, in the use of 
a standing army and naval armament to enforce 
the collection of taxes, and the appointment of 
the commander-in-chief as governor of a colony. 
Admiralty judges had been empowered to re- 
ceive their salaries and fees from effects con- 
demned by themselves, while customs officers had 
been empowered to break open houses without 
authority of civil magistrates. New, expensive, 
and oppressive offices, the dissolution of assem- 
blies, acts in restraint of commerce, the abolition 
of trial by jury, as well as the several acts directed 
against Massachusetts and affecting Quebec, were 
sufficient for the people of New Jersey to " fly to 



ONY AND AS A STATE 405 

the foot of his Throne " and implore the sover- 
eign's protection. 

That New Jersey made the cause of the more 
deeply aggrieved colonies her own is suggested 
by the petition. "Although all the grievances 
above enumerated," says that document, " do not 
immediately aft'ect the people of this Colony, yet 
as in their consequences they will be deeply in- 
volved we cannot remain silent and unconcerned." 
In support of the loyalty of the colony the atti- 
tude of New Jersey in aiding the crown and the 
more exposed colonies during the French and In- 
dian War was suggested. This evidence of affec- 
tion, as well as the willingness of the members to 
sustain the government, led the Assembly to de- 
clare that it abhorred the idea of a state of in- 
dependency, and that it had no knowledge of such 
design in others. 

The chasm between the governor and the As- 
sembly, which assembled for a few days in May, 
grew wider. The members rejected the plan of 
conciliation proposed in Parliament upon the 20th 
of February, and in a long answer to Governor 
Franklin's still longer message refused to take 
action. Nor was the Assembly which met upon 
the 15th of November in much better humor. 
While it would not listen to the appeals 
of the governor, the house, in answer to 
a peace petition signed ^y certain inhabit- 



406 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




ants of the County of Burlington, declared 
that the " reports of Independency * * * 
are groundless," and directed the delegates 
to the Continental Congress to use their en- 
deavors to obtain a redress of grievances, restore 
union upon constitutional principles, and to reject 
propositions leading to independency or alteration 
in the form of government. 

In the meantime the governor's council had re- 
mained in a quiescent state, as that body was more 
directly under his control. Upon the 6th of De- 
cember the governor prorogued the Assembly to 
meet upon the 3rd of January, 1776, but it never 
reassembled, and with it died the council. 
Throughout the contest, which had been con- 
ducted with every evidence of honesty of purpose 
on either side, the person of the governor had 
been kept inviolate. He had been assured by the 
Assembly that he need not seek the protection of 
the King's ships; indeed that for him, individual- 
ly, New Jersey had the highest respect. Had he 
espoused the cause of liberty he would have been, 
in all probability, the first governor of the State 
of New Jersey under the new constitution. 

The political crisis in the life of William Frank- 
lin was reached during the middle of the month 
of June, 1776. Since his arrest in January, by Lord 
Stirling, who had but recently been a member 
of the governor's council, although later deposed, 




RF.srnv.xnH of t.ord STrRi.iuft. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 407 

William Franklin had been living in the proprie- 
tors' house at Perth Amboy. Nominally governor 
of New Jersey, neither his affable manners nor 
his personal popularity, stimulated by excellent 
address and a fund of humor and anecdote, nor 
his father's reputation, nor his undoubted quali- 
ties as a statesman could save him from the im- 
pending doom. He had advanced the interests of 
the colony at court and had urged beneficial legis- 
lation at home, while he and his amiable wife had 
entertained with vice-regal elegance and had es- 
tablished a model farm on the banks of the Ean- 
cocas, for all of which the people of New Jersey 
were grateful; nevertheless the hour had come 
when neither the person of a royal governor was 
secure nor the office he held was sacred. Follow- 
ing the advice of Benjamin Franklin, the govern- 
or had made a choice. He had selected the cause 
of the King. And for his loyalty the governor 
paid a price little short of death. 

The attitude of the Provincial Congress toward 
William Franklin, while resolute, was neverthe- 
less respectful. In the Congress were men who 
had sat in the colonial Assemblies and who had 
been his official beneficiaries. While the hands 
that stripped him of power were firm, they were 
tender. To some of them, at least, he was still 
Governor Franklin, at whose board they had sat 
in Perth Ambov and Burlington, and whose 



408 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

stories of his army life in the French and Indian 
War; of his law student days at the inns of court, 
and of his marriage in London they had heard 
with pleasure. While independence meant a new 
order of things political, the putting aside of the 
old brought a touch of sorrow and, for some, a 
pang of regret. 

But the path lay open. So long as the royal 
governor exercised the semblance of power so 
long was the Provincial Congress hampered in its 
preparations for a resort to force. With the re- 
moval of the substance the shadow passed away. 
For this reason June 14th was a momentous day 
in the session of the Provincial Congress. The 
thirteen counties, in conformity with a resolution, 
had each returned five delegates, and of the sixty- 
five, there were forty-nine who voted upon a mem- 
orable resolution to the effect that the proclama- 
tion of William Franklin, " late governor of New 
Jersey," appointing a meeting of the Legislature 
for June 20th, " ought not to be obeyed." An af- 
firmative vote stood thirty-eight to eleven. Of the 
latter, Bergen delegates cast four. Cape May and 
Hunterdon each two, with one each to the credit 
of Sussex, Essex, and Monmouth. 

This was followed on the succeeding day by the 
passage of another resolution that, in the opinion 
of the Provincial Congress, Governor Franklin, 
by such proclamation, had acted in contempt and 



ONY AXD AS A STATE 409 

violation of the resolution of Congress directing 
New Jersey and the other colonies to frame for 
themselves independent governments. This was 
passed by a vote of forty-one to eight. In the 
negative Bergen cast three votes, Cape May, Mon- 
mouth, and Hunterdon each cast two votes, with 
one vote from Sussex. 

A third resolution declaring that William 
Franklin " has discovered himself an enemy to the 
liberties of his country," and that measures should 
be taken for securing his person, brought forty- 
two votes in the affirmative and ten in the nega- 
tive. Three votes were cast by Bergen, two each 
by Monmouth and Hunterdon, and one each by 
Essex, Sussex, and Cape May, all in the negative. 

The fourth and final resolution declared that 
henceforth the salary of William Franklin should 
cease. In favor of this resolution forty-seven votes 
were cast in the affirmative, Sussex, Bergen, and 
Hunterdon each casting one vote in the negative. 

To arrest the governor an order was issued to 
Colonel Nathaniel Heard, of whom, on the occa- 
sion of a raid on Long Island, the Tories had re- 
cently sung: 

Col. Heard has come to town, 

In all his pride and glory; 
And when he dies he'll go to Hell 

For robbing of the Tory. 

The gallant militiaman was directed to conduct 



410 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

the affair " with all the delicacy and tenderness 
which the nature of the business can possibly ad- 
mit." To William Franklin was given the option 
of paroling himself at Princeton, Bordentown, or 
his own farm at Rancocas — his large plantation 
called " Franklin Park," upon the north bank of 
the Rancocas River, near the site of the first mill 
erected in West Jersey, and within a few miles 
of Burlington. Colonel Heard departed upon his 
mission, and upon the 17th of June, with Major 
Deare, visited the late governor, who not only 
refused to comply with the order of the Provincial 
Congress, but forbade Colonel Heard, at his peril, 
to carry the order into execution. A guard of 
sixty militia was placed around the late gov- 
ernor's house. The Provincial Congress, appar- 
ently hesitating about taking action, immediately 
referred the whole matter to the Continental Con- 
gress, with the suggestion that William Franklin 
be removed from the colony, as he would be capa- 
ble " of doing less mischief in Connecticut or Penn- 
sylvania than in New Jersey." Upon the 21st of 
June William Franklin was brought before the 
Provincial Congress to be questioned " touching 
such parts of his conduct as were deemed inim- 
ical to the liberties of America." The late gov- 
ernor, stoutly refusing to answer the inquiries 
and denying the authority of Congress, was di- 
rected to be confined in such place and manner 



ONY AND AS A STATE 411 

as the Continental Congress should direct, in the 
meantime to be under the guard of Lieutenant- 
Colonel Bowes Reed. 

While yet the Provincial Congress vacillated 
the authorities of the united colonies directed him 
to be sent to Connecticut, to be placed under the 
authority of Governor Trumbull, the only chief 
executive of any one of the thirteen colonies who 
did not adhere to the Tory cause. Upon his ar- 
rival in Connecticut Governor Franklin was 
placed under strict surveillance in East Windsor, 
where he remained for two years, and upon being 
exchanged sought, in New York City, protection 
within the British lines. 




1 



i:^ 




(iREAT 8KAL OF GEORGK U. 



CHAPTER 



Tt'i: (;athekin(j Storm 



EXCEPT upon the desolated frontiers of 
New York, Pennsylvania, and Vir- 
ginia England's wars with France 
and Spain left no permanent physical 
impress, and in those colonies even 
the path of destruction and death was soon ob- 
literated by the constant pressure of a western- 
moving mass of emigrants. But in New Jersey, 
and in the other northern and middle colonies, the 
effect of the war upon the social and political life 
of those communities was vast and far reaching. 
Although unrecognized by the colonists the close 
of the struggle made the Revolution an almost 
immediate possibility. In its failure to teach an 
evident lesson to the ministry of the British King 
it made a gigantic contest for colonial rights a 
necessity. 

To the officers of the crown the results of the 
French and Indian War were objective. At a 
vast expense of lives and treasure, by the home 
government, France had been driven from North 
America, and a natural foe had been humiliated. 
To this end New Jersey as well as the other colo- 
nies had contributed, not only as a matter of nat- 
ural affection for the crown, but for their own 
glory. The display of power and wealth, such as 
the English officers saw in America, was but a 
new illustration of the principle actuating the 
course of officials of the home government — that 



416 NEW JERSEY AS A COL 

Americans enjoying the rights of colonists under 
the aegis of the English constitution, being bene- 
ficiaries of good government, should consent to 
taxation without complaint, and should consider 
it a bounden duty to supply the British Isles with 
those products which contribute to the pleasure 
and profit of a governing people. 

But to the colonists the results of the war were 
subjective. It is no more than right, they said, 
that England should have saved our homes and 
firesides from the merciless savages in a contest 
that was not so much for territorial acquisition 
and for the destruction of French power as it was 
for self-preservation. The wealth that had been 
acquired in New Jersey had been gathered in the 
face of the most objectionable parliamentary leg- 
islation of a social and economic character. Ev- 
ery claim of right of freedom in trade had been 
met with repulse by the Lords of Trade and Plan- 
tations, by His Majesty's ministers, and by Par- 
liament. To taxation, as loyal subjects, the colo- 
nies did not object, but, accustomed in all royal 
charters to representation in some form in their 
Assemblies, they could not tolerate taxation in 
Parliament without sending members to that 
body. Furthermore by teaching the English offi- 
cers the manner of fighting Indians, not by move- 
ments of platoons as on continental battlefields, 
but by the tactics of those bred in the woods and 



ONY AlsB AS A STATE 



417 



fields, human lives and expenses in maintaining 
troops had been greatly saved. And still further 
thej contended that, as they were Englishmen, 
they were entitled as such to all the political 
rights and economic privileges of Englishmen, 
whether in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, 
or in London, Bristol, and Oxford. 

The advent of William Franklin, last royal gov- 
ernor of New Jersey at the close of the French and 
Indian War, in 1763, marked the gathering of the 
storm. In New Jersey there was an open feeling 
of discontent. True, nearly all men were loyal, 
all were patriotic with that nervous form of pat- 
riotism marking the close of every successful 
struggle, but beneath the surface were uncer- 
tainty, doubt, and even dread. The matter soon 
came to an issue. 

Although unaffected, except sentimentally, by 
the Navigation Act which so seriously compli- 
cated the situation for Boston, Philadelphia, and 
New York, New Jersey was directly moved by the 
passage by Parliament of the Stamp Act upon 
March 22, 1765. Benjamin Franklin, father of 
Governor William Franklin, had warned Parlia- 
ment that the colony would resent any attempt to 
impose " taxation without representation." In it- 
self the stamp duty was light, but the question 
was purely one of principle. When the news of 

the passage of the bill reached New Jersey the 
[Vol. n 




STAMP-ACT STAMP, 



418 



NEW JEESEY AS A COL 



^^SS^ 




STAMP-ACT STAMP. 



conservatism of the colony showed itself. In that 
no outward show of lawlessness was made, Gov- 
ernor Franklin assumed that the opposition, while 
present, was temporary, and so advised the crown 
officials. But the conservative action was an evi- 
dence of determination to meet the situation, not 
by physical force, but by the exercise of moral pur- 
pose. William Coxe, chief stamp officer in New 
Jersey, resigned; John Hatton, local stamp offi- 
cer for Salem, was forced out of office. To op- 
pose the stamp act, which was designed to go 
into effect November 1, 1765, the lawyers of New 
Jersey organized, and upon the 19th of September, 
in that year, at a meeting in Perth Amboy, re- 
solved that they would not make use of the stamps 
for any purpose or under any circumstances. As 
the stamps were designed largely for use upon 
legal papers this meant a cessation of legal busi- 
ness and a consequent prevention of any revenue 
to England from the sale of stamps. 

To this end, " protesting against all riotous 
proceedings," the lawyers resolved not to practice 
their profession until April 1, 1766. By Febru- 
ary, 1766, the Sons of Liberty had been organ- 
ized and had sworn to " support the British 
Constitution," a euphemistic term for resistance 
to the stamp act. Members and delegates repre- 
senting the eastern and western divisions of the 
province requested the lawyers " to proceed to 



ONY AND AS A STATE 419 

business as usual without stamps," and to use 
their influence " to open the courts of justice as 
soon as possible/' to which the lawyers replied 
that if no accounts were received from Parlia- 
ment they would commence practice April 1, and 
if the Stamp Act was not suspended or repealed 
they would join the Sons of Liberty in opposition 
to it. The stamj)s designed for New Jersey were 
never landed from the hold of the vessel which lay 
that winter in the Delaware, and upon March 18, 
1766, the act was repealed. 

But the repeal of the stamp tax act which was 
accompanied by a "declaratory act " insisting that 
Parliament had the right to tax the colonies in all 
cases, was but a new manifestation of the senti- 
ment of the British ministry. The economic phase 
of the contest came squarely to the front. 
Asserting the right to tax, there was passed in 
Parliament in June, 1767, a law providing for a 
nominal impost upon glass, paper, pasteboard, 
white and red lead, painters' colors, and tea, with 
the provision that the crown could establish a 
civil list in every American colony, with salaries, 
pensions, and emoluments to the entire amount of 
the duties. In May, 1768, the Assembly of New 
Jersey, in emphatic but highly respectful lan- 
guage, prayed to the King for relief from acts of 
Parliament imposing a duty on them for the pur- 
pose of raising a revenue. A right and liberty, 






A UBERTY PLA.CABD. 



420 



NEW JERSEY AS A COL 




it was said, vested in the people of New Jersey, 
" is the Privilege of being exempt from any Taxa- 
tion but such as is imposed on them by themselves 
or by their Representatives, and this they esteem 
so invaluable, that they are fully persuaded no 
other can exist without it." 

Before the resort to force, and the organization 
of that machinery of correspondence and espion- 
age which marks the real advent of the Revolu- 
tion, the state of public sentiment in the colony of 
New Jersey may be well considered. 

While in neighboring colonies recourse was had 
to violence, it is noticeable that in New Jersey, 
during the agitation concerning the tax legisla- 
tion, no display of force occurred. This assertion 
may be limited to two riots, which were incidental 
to agitation over the Stamp Act, but which were 
directed against the lawyers. For several years 
there had existed a bitter feeling against members 
of the bar owing to claims made that extortionate 
fees drove clients into debt to their attorneys. In a 
pamphlet entitled " Liberty and Property without 
Oppression," printed in 1769, the Stamp Act was 
designated as the first " Wounding and Devouring 
Serpent," but lawyers were declared to be " Ser- 
pents seven times more devouring than the first, 
who in their daily Practice are as Public Leaches, 
sucking out our very Heart's Blood." Unavailing 
etitions were sent to the Assembly, and finally 




-^s 



THE COLONIAL JACK. 



ONY AND AS A STATE 421 

in July, 1769, an attempt by an armed mob was 
made to prevent lawyers from entering the Mon- 
mouth County court house. Again in January, 
1770, the attorneys were driven from the hall of 
justice amid great confusion. In Essex County 
similar disturbances took place, and the stables 
and outhouses of David Ogden, a prominent mem- 
ber of the bar, were burned. 

But in spite of all the discussion and even the 
rioting against the lawyers there was little or no 
spirit favoring independence among Jerseymen 
as late as 1772. A close distinction must be made 
between the discussion as to rights under the 
British constitution and the contention for actual 
separation of the colonies from the crown. Even 
among the most active partisans of the claims of 
the colonists few there were who would have even 
considered favorably the idea of independence; 
most men would have rejected the plan as treason- 
able. Although three short years made vast 
changes in the current of popular thought, the 
doctrine of independence, so far as New Jersey 
was concerned, may be said to have been either in 
the minds of dreamers or surreptitiously advo- 
cated by men of uncertain social status, who 
hoped thereby to benefit their fortunes. The time 
was ripe for a change, riper than men of the day 
thought; but the conservatism of the colony was 
strong. Throughout the western division the So- 



422 



NEW JERSEY AS A COLONY 




ciety of Friends were loyal to the crown, prefer- 
ring peace and not deeply affected by the tax. 5 
Episcopalians were naturally favorable to the ex- -• 
isting government. In the eastern division the 
Calvinistic elements, both English Presbyterian 
and Dutch Reformed, were unprepared for the 
exercise of force, although they were soon to be- 
come the most active of Whig partisans. The 
restive Scotch-Irish leaned strongly toward re- 
form, but independence was a last resort. 

The close of the colonial period in New Jersey 
finds two factors working for independence, com- 
mittees of correspondence and the Continental 
Congresses, bringing the minds of men into closer 
association, centralizing views, and unconscious- 
ly preparing them for the struggle, and the des- 
ultory displays of force, as illustrated in the 
Greenwich tea party and the earliest organiza- 
tion of the local militia. These factors mark the 
transition from the colony to the State, are di- 
rectly associated with the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and, being distinctively Revolutionary 
in their character, their discussion is reserved for 
SHic next volum^ 



(end of volume one) 



THK BOSTON MASSACRE. 



